Plague

army, he didn’t have a plan.
    Drake would go after Perdido Beach next. He would send those creatures rampaging through town killing everyone.
    Then he would take Astrid and . . .
    Don’t get emotional, Sam warned himself. Just figure out how to win.
    He heard clumsy splashing ahead. He rolled over smoothly into a crawl and powered hard and fast.
    “Shhh,” he hissed as soon as he was up with them. “You people make more noise than a bunch of littles in the kiddie pool.”
    The four of them closed the distance to the dock. Sam motioned for Jack, Dekka, and Toto to slip silently beneath it. Toto had lost his grip on his cushion and it floated away. Jack banged his head on the bottom of the dock and cursed under his breath.
    Sam palmed the dock and hoisted himself up, drenched.
    “Hi, Sam.”
    Brittney stood not twenty feet away.
    He spotted three of the creatures over by the marina parking lot. They were waiting. Like a well-trained pack of attack dogs.
    He’d been outwitted. Outplayed.
    “Hi, Brittney,” Sam said, standing there, dripping.
    “I asked you so many times to release me, Sam,” she said. Her voice was cold and far away. Not angry, not scared. Just maybe a little sad.
    “I know, Brittney. But I’m not a cold-blooded killer,” Sam said.
    Brittney nodded. “No, you’re a good person.” She said it without sarcasm.
    “I try to be. Like you, Brittney. I know you’re a good person.”
    He glanced at the creatures. They hadn’t moved, but they were alert. They could be on him in ten seconds.
    “He hates you,” Brittney said.
    “Drake?” Sam laughed. “He hates everyone. Hate is all he’s got.”
    “Not Drake. Him. God.”
    Sam blinked. What was he supposed to say to that? “I thought God loved everyone.”
    “I used to believe that, too,” Brittney said. “But then I met Him.”
    “Did you?” She had lost whatever grip on reality she’d had. He couldn’t blame her. What Brittney had endured would leave anyone mental.
    “He’s not in the sky, you know,” Brittney said in a normal, conversational tone. “He’s not up in Heaven somewhere.”
    “I didn’t realize that.”
    “He’s in the earth, Sam. He lives in a dark, dark place.”
    Sam’s heart missed a beat. He felt cold. “You met God in a dark place?”
    She showed her twisted, damaged braces in a surprising, rapturous smile. “He explained His great plan.”
    “Yeah?”
    “His time is coming. All of this . . .” She swept her arm wide. “It’s all like, like . . . like an egg, Sam. He has to be born from this egg.”
    “He’s a chicken?”
    “Don’t mock, Sam,” Brittney chided. “He waits to be born. But He needs Nemesis to join Him, Sam, and you . . . you won’t let that happen.”
    “Nemesis? What’s a nemesis?”
    Brittney had a crafty look as she said, “Oh, Sam. You know who Nemesis is. He has the power to complete God’s plan.” She laced her fingers together, almost awestruck by the act, like it was sacrament. “They must be joined, the Darkness and Nemesis. Together they will have all power, and then, Sam, it all ends, you know. Then the eggshell cracks and He is born.”
    “That sounds . . .” He resisted the urge to say “crazy.” “It sounds interesting. But I don’t think the gaiaphage is God. I think he’s evil.”
    “Of course he’s evil,” Brittney enthused. “Of course! Evil, good, there’s no difference, don’t you see that? They’re the same thing. Like me and Drake. Yin and yang, Sam. Two in one, a duality, a . . .”
    She faltered a little, like a child trying to explain something she didn’t quite understand. She frowned.
    “He lied to you, Brittney. The gaiaphage is not God. He reaches into people’s minds and makes them do terrible things.”
    “He warned me you would say that,” Brittney said. “My Lord and Nemesis must be joined. And all of you have to die. You’re all like a disease. Like a virus. A plague that must be wiped out so that He can unite with Nemesis and be born.”
    Sam was getting tired of the talk. He’d never cared much for religion one way or the other, and some fantasy religion made up by a dead girl to justify the gaiaphage’s lies was even less interesting than Astrid’s religious excuses for not having sex. He was impatient to find out what Brittney meant to do. If there was to be a fight, then let there be a fight.
    “And then what, Brittney? Did the gaiaphage explain that to you?”
    “Then all the world will be remade.