Lamb: the Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Joshua’s face. His head rolled, and his tongue rolled out of the side of his mouth against the moisture.
    “Drink,” Johanna said, but Joshua didn’t seem to hear her. She pushed the sponge harder against his mouth and it dripped on one of the Romans. “Drink.”
    “Move away from there, Marcus,” said the old soldier. “When he goes he’ll lose his fluids all over you. You don’t want to sit too close.” The old Roman laughed raucously.
    “Drink it, Joshua,” said Susanna.
    Finally Joshua opened his eyes and pushed his face into the sponge. I held my breath as I heard him sucking the moisture out of it.
    “Enough!” said the young soldier. He knocked the stick out of Susanna’s hands. The sponge went flying off into the dirt. “He’ll be dead soon.”
    “Not soon enough, though, with that block to stand on,” said the old soldier.
    Then time began to pass more slowly than I could ever remember. When Joy had poisoned me it had taken only seconds before I was paralyzed, then when I’d used the poison on the man in India he’d dropped almost immediately. I tried to pretend to pay attention to the game, but I was looking for some sign that the poison was working.
    The women moved away and watched from a distance, but I heard one of them gasp and when I looked up, Joshua’s head had lolled over. Drool ran out of his open mouth.
    “How do you know when he’s dead?” I asked.
    “Like this.” The young soldier named Marcus prodded Joshua in the thigh with his spear. Joshua moaned and opened his eyes and I felt my stomach sink. I could hear sobbing from Johanna and Susanna.
    I threw the dice, and waited. An hour passed, and still Joshua moaned. I could hear him praying softly from time to time over the laughter of the soldiers. Another hour. I had begun to shake. Every sound from the cross was like a hot iron driven in my spine. I couldn’t bring myself to look up at him. The disciples moved closer, less concerned now about staying hidden, but the Romans were too intent on their game to notice. Unfortunately, I was not intent enough.
    “That’s it for you,” said the old soldier. “Unless you want to gamble for your own cloak now. Your purse is empty.”
    “Is this bastard ever going to die?” said one of the young soldiers.
    “He just needs help,” said the young soldier named Marcus, who had stood and was leaning on his spear. Before I could even get to my feet he thrust the spear upward into Joshua’s side, the point went up under his ribs, and his heart blood pulsed down the iron in three great gushes, then ran out in a trickle. Marcus yanked the spear out. The entire hillside echoed with screaming, some of it my own. I stood transfixed, shaking, watching the blood run out of Joshua’s side. Hands latched onto my arms and I was dragged back, away from the cross. The Romans started to pick up their things to head back to the praetorium.
    “Loony,” said the old soldier, looking at me.
    Joshua looked at me one last time, then closed his eyes and died.
    “Come away, Biff,” a woman’s voice said in my ear. “Come away.” They turned me around and started marching me toward the city. I could feel a chill running over me as the wind came up and the sky started to darken under a sudden storm. There was still screaming, going on and on, and when Johanna clamped her hand over my mouth I realized it was me who had been screaming. I blinked tears out of my eyes, again and again, trying to at least see where they were leading me, but as soon as my sight would clear another sob would rock my body and the water would rise again.
    They were leading me to the Gennath Gate, that much I could tell, and there was a dark figure standing on the wall above the gate, watching us. I blinked and caught a single second of clarity as I saw who it was.
    “Judas!” I screamed until my voice shattered. I shook off the women and ran through the gate, swung myself up on top of one of the huge doors, and leapt to the wall. Judas ran south along the wall, looking from side to side for a place to jump off.
    There was no thought to what I was doing, nothing but grief gone to anger, love gone to hatred. I followed Judas across the roofs of Jerusalem, tossing aside anyone who got in my way, shattering pottery, crashing down rooftop chicken cages, pulling down lines of hanging clothes. When he came to a roof that led no further, Judas jumped two stories to the ground and came up limping as he ran down the