Apocalypse Crucible (40 page)

A relieved look flashed across Jenny’s face, but she didn’t let it find a home there. She was too composed to let something as vulnerable as relief show. Since Megan had known the young woman, she’d recognized that about her. Jenny always put on a strong front, showed a little attitude. Whatever her weaknesses were—and Megan was certain they were there—Jenny kept them quietly under wraps.

Jenny joined Megan, and they sat in the chairs between the two MPs assigned to keep Megan in the waiting room.

“Crowded,” Jenny observed in a whisper.

“Tonight … hasn’t been a good night. For a lot of people.”

The young woman glanced at the two MPs. “Fan club?”

“Not exactly.”

Understanding dawned in Jenny’s eyes. “Somebody figures it’s your fault Leslie Hollister is in here?”

Megan started to hedge, but she realized immediately that Jenny would see right through her best efforts, and she was hardly at her best. “If it’s not my fault, then maybe it’s partly my responsibility. I was in the room when Leslie shot herself.”

“You went in there because she was in trouble. Blaming yourself is wrong.
And
it’s stupid.” Jenny glared at the two MPs, who decided to find different parts of the room to look at.

It’s the military,
Megan wanted to tell her.
It has to be someone’s fault.
But all she said was, “We’ll just take this one step at a time for now.”

Jenny nodded, then concentrated on opening the thermos.

Seeing the container immediately reminded Megan of Goose. When he was stationed at the post, he never went anywhere without it. He carried coffee in it fifty weeks out of the year, but during the last two weeks before Christmas, Megan always filled the thermos with homemade cocoa. It had been one of her private ways of making sure Goose remembered that Christmas was a special and blessed event.

Jenny looked awkward. “It was okay to use this, wasn’t it? I mean, I didn’t think to ask.”

“It’s fine,” Megan said. “Just caught me a little off guard.”

“It’s Goose’s, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“I wasn’t thinking. Brain-dead or something. Sorry.”

Megan touched Jenny’s shoulder. “Don’t be. If it hadn’t been the thermos that reminded me Goose isn’t here, the TV would. The news channel televises a recap on the attack in Sanliurfa every fifteen minutes.”

Carefully, Jenny poured the hot chicken noodle soup into two plastic cups she took from the paper bag. “Thought I would join you. If you don’t mind.”

“I appreciate the company. Miss dinner?”

Jenny smiled, but the effort was off, weaker than Megan had ever seen. “I’m thinking I missed lunch, too,” Jenny said, “but that might have been yesterday.”

“Lunch
was
yesterday. We’re already into a new day.”

Jenny shook her head. “Not until I’ve gone to sleep. Clock-watching just gets me confused. It’ll be tomorrow when I wake up. And not one moment before.”

Megan accepted the cup of hot soup and inhaled. Her stomach growled eagerly. “This smells wonderful.”

“Thank you. I found the recipe in a cookbook in the library when I was a kid. I always liked it.”

“It smells homey and substantive, like something your mother would have taught you to make.”

Jenny broke the eye contact and rummaged in the paper sack again. Megan watched the young woman’s feelings slide back behind protective shields that came up like a conditioned reflex. “My mother—”

Not
Mother
with a capital
M,
or even
Mom,
Megan noted. And there’s anger there too.

“—didn’t really stick around to teach me cooking or laundry.” Jenny took two sandwiches wrapped in wax paper from the paper sack. “Or how to fix my hair.”

“Ah. That would explain the purple tint,” Megan said automatically, then wondered immediately if she had gone too far.

Instead of taking offense, Jenny grinned.

“I was teasing,” Megan said.

“I know.” Jenny held out one of the sandwiches. “BLT?”

“Yes. Thank you. I was afraid for a moment it might be peanut butter and jelly.”

“That was a temptation. PB and J would have been quick and easy. Frying bacon with a houseful of teenagers banging around is about as much fun as juggling cats.”

“I didn’t mean to put so much on you.”

Jenny sighed and stared at the cup of soup in her hands. Her hands shook slightly. “That came out wrong. I didn’t mean that. I just … I just … have a lot on my mind right now.”

Megan waited. The rumble of voices sounded all around them as people whispered and talked.

“Can I help?” Megan asked.

Jenny slowly tore her BLT in half. “I wish you could, but you can’t.”

“Try me.”

With quiet focus, Jenny pulled a lettuce leaf from her sandwich and ate it.

“Something happened since you called me,” Megan said.

“Maybe.”

“The kids—”

“Are fine,” Jenny replied.

“Joey—”

Shaking her head, Jenny said, “Didn’t call.”

“Okay, I’m all out of guesses.”

After a brief hesitation, Jenny shook her head. “You have enough problems right now, and I’m … just not ready to talk about it.”

“All right. But when you are, I’m here.”

Jenny looked at Megan briefly. Glimmers of unshed tears showed in the young woman’s eyes. “I appreciate that. Really, I do. It’s just that … this is something really old. And private.” She held up her cup. “Let’s eat, okay? I mean, I did go to all the trouble to make it.”

“Okay.” Despite her flagging reserves and screaming need to fix something and make it right because she felt all she’d accomplished during this day was a long string of mistakes, Megan calmed herself and turned her attention to the soup and sandwich.
She doesn’t need a counselor now. She just needs a friend. And so do you.

They ate in companionable silence, interrupted only by Jenny’s brief departure to the vending machine to buy fruit juices. With the odd combination of soup, sandwich, and juice, Megan felt like she was having a meal with Joey and Chris. All that was missing were the cartoons on TV.

And home,
she reminded herself.

She finished the soup and had a second helping, not just to make Jenny feel good, but because the company and the warm broth made her hungry and felt healing. After they’d completed the meal, Megan and Jenny threw the trash away. Even during the short walk across the room to the trash cans, one of the MPs went with them.

Jenny sent the MP a scathing look, then said to Megan, “These guys really take their job seriously. You’d think you were on the Top Ten Most Wanted list or something.”

“It’s a serious situation,” Megan replied as they resumed their seats.

“Look,” Jenny said with an edge to her words, “don’t buy into the whole guilt trip they’re handing out here. What happened to Leslie, it’s bad. I’ll agree with that. But she’s the one who lost it. Not you. You walked into that house unarmed when a small army of MPs was ready to go in with guns blazing. You did what you could, and you’re going to feel a little guilty that you didn’t make it all better, but you tried.”

The young woman’s insight surprised Megan.
You taught yourself the recipe for chicken noodle soup from a book in the library, but where did you learn such wisdom?

Megan remembered the talk Jenny had given her the morning after Chris had disappeared, how she had brought up the book she’d read about the Rapture and the Tribulation. Jenny had pointed out that God had allowed Megan to save Gerry Fletcher just long enough that he didn’t reach the other end of the four-story plummet he’d started.

“Thank you,” Megan said.

Jenny crossed her arms and looked a little embarrassed. “No big deal. I just don’t want to see you tearing yourself up over this. The kids need you.”

“I know.”

“But they need something more, too, Megan.” Jenny’s tone got a little harder. “Television and playing all-night Monopoly is only going to take them so far. At some point, if they don’t have more going on soon, they’re going to freak out.”

“I’m listening.” Megan was surprised to see the strong side of Jenny McGrath come out when she was obviously in some kind of personal turmoil herself.

“They need to know what’s happening,” Jenny said, looking straight at Megan. “They need to know what they’re supposed to do. A plan. That’s what they need most of all.”

“We’re working on surviving,” Megan said. “That’s a plan.”

“
No.
” Jenny’s voice shook with emotion. A tear slid down her cheek. She started to wipe it away, then stopped herself. She took a short, quick breath, and her face relaxed. Not another tear fell, and the first one spread so thin it couldn’t be seen anymore.

Megan knew the young woman’s control was incredible, but she had no idea how Jenny had learned to exercise it.

“Survival,” Jenny said in a calm and forceful voice, “isn’t good enough. Thinking about surviving something—that gets you through days. Maybe years if you really work at it and lie to yourself and tell yourself that’s all there is every day. But just thinking about surviving doesn’t get you through life.”

Where did you learn that?

“If you’re going to save the kids here at this base,” Jenny said, “you’re going to have to help them understand the truth of what really happened three days ago. And you’re going to have to let them know what they’re supposed to do about it.”

Megan couldn’t speak. The last time she and Jenny had had a conversation like this, they’d been in the privacy of her home and talking over a breakfast of bagels. It was one thing to discuss religion and belief in the sanctity of her home, but to do so while being guarded by the two MPs was disconcerting. She wasn’t strong enough for that. Even Bill Townsend had sensed that and never made her feel uncomfortable.

“I’m talking about the Rapture.” Jenny definitely wasn’t going to back off. “I tried talking to some of those kids today, to let them know what was going on. I even tried to get them to read the book I read. But maybe I didn’t explain it right.”

“Maybe they’re not ready,” Megan suggested.

“Megan, they … have … no … choice.” Jenny punctuated her words with her hand, like she was pushing each word into place between them. “The Tribulation lasts seven years. And if something happens to those kids before they learn what they’re supposed to do—” She let the rest of it hang.

Then they go to hell? Is that what happens, God? Would You really let that happen to them?
The fear burned bright and hard inside Megan because she knew Jenny was right. But she didn’t know what she was going to do about it. She bowed her head, breaking eye contact with Jenny.
God, I know we’re not supposed to ask for signs, but if You could see Your way clear—

“Mrs. Gander.”

Hearing her name startled Megan. She glanced up and saw Dr. Lyons, the surgeon who had taken Leslie Hollister when she’d arrived in the emergency room. Lyons was a career military doctor, ramrod straight, and in his early fifties. During her time at the post, Megan had gotten to know him and his wife through her work and the occasional social function that accompanied it. Dr. and Mrs. Lyons were good people. He wore green scrubs and looked haggard.

Megan stood and went to Lyons. She tried to ask the question, but she couldn’t make any words come through her constricted throat.

Lyons smiled tiredly at her and took her hand. “Leslie Hollister made it through surgery, Mrs. Gander. She’s a strong girl. A fighter. She just wasn’t ready to leave us yet.”

Tears filled Megan’s eyes. Before she knew it, Jenny was in her arms, hugging her and holding her tight, and for just a moment everything seemed all right.

Sunshine Hills Cemetery
Outside Marbury, Alabama
Local Time 0418 Hours

Delroy woke lying facedown in the mud a few feet from his son’s grave. Small trickles of water ran past him, only inches from his face. Rain pummeled his back, constant and relentless. After everything he’d suffered through, he hadn’t had the strength to leave the graveyard.