“You’re an idiot,” said the boy.
“You’re an asshole,” said the girl.
The boy looked at her. “You might as well leave now. I bet you’re persuasive as hell, to people who know your parents. In student council, you’re a queen. But you’re only here because it’s supposed to be the best, and that’s what good little girls do. They do their best.”
The girl’s cheeks flamed. “Is this supposed to make me quit?”
“I already know how to make you quit. Have Daddy call and say he misses you.”
The girl turned and left. Emily heard her feet slapping down the corridor. She looked at the boy.
“This school is mine,” he said.
• • •
Early next morning, Charlotte drove her downtown. She barely spoke and Emily was still somewhat pissed so it was a quiet journey. They pulled into a parking garage and Charlotte killed the engine. Emily unbuckled but Charlotte didn’t move.
“Eliot thinks you’re worth persisting with,” Charlotte said to the rearview mirror. “It seems pointless to me. But occasionally he sees things.”
Emily kept her mouth shut.
“Usually, this examination is administered by a junior staff member.” Charlotte popped open the glove box and applied big sunglasses. They made her look elegant and sexy, not like a nun at all. “But since you are so allegedly bursting with potential, I wanted to see for myself.”
She led Emily to a nondescript street corner, where there was a grocer, a newspaper stand, and a dog tied to a NO STANDING pole. One of those things was important, Emily figured. Charlotte glanced at her watch. It was early but the sun was peeking above the buildings and seemed excited to be there. If they were going to hang around out here, Emily should lose the jacket.
“Our purpose today is to test your lexicon,” Charlotte said. “By which I mean your array of useful words.” This did not clarify anything for Emily. “Are you ready?”
“Sure,” she said.
Charlotte’s sunglasses swung to the far sidewalk, which was empty. They waited. “A whore is ‘one who desires.’ The word is Proto-Indo-European. From the same root as love. Did you know that?”
“No.”
“Today, the word is used to describe any person who can be persuaded. Most obviously, by money for sex. But also more generally. One may ‘whore oneself’ by performing any kind of vaguely unpleasant act in exchange for reward.”
Emily shifted from one foot to the other.
“A similar term is proselyte. Typically used in a religious sense, to denote a person converting from one faith to another. Like a whore, a proselyte is persuaded to perform an act. The difference is that a whore does what she knows is wrong for reward, while a proselyte does what she has been persuaded to believe is right.” She glanced at Emily. “You are to remain within three feet of where you currently stand. If you move beyond that radius, you fail the examination. You are to persuade people on that side of the road to cross to this side. You may not use the same method of persuasion more than once per person or group. Each person or group you fail to persuade is a strike. After three strikes, the test ends. You begin now.”
Emily stared. Charlotte nodded to the far sidewalk. A girl in a track suit was jogging down it. For a moment, Emily froze. Then she yelled, “Hey! Hello!” She waved her arms. The jogger pulled earbuds out of her ears. “Can you come here? Please? It’s very important!”
The woman looked annoyed. But she stopped, checked the traffic, and headed across the road.
“Nonspecific anonymous verbal summons,” said Charlotte, retreating to the shade of a clothes store awning. “One.”
The jogger reached her, blond and sweaty. “Yeah?”
“Sorry,” said Emily. “I thought you were somebody else.” The woman gave her a dirty look and plugged her earbuds back in. Emily felt sweat on the back of her neck. “How many do I need to pass?”
“I’m afraid I can’t divulge that. But if you’re interested, the record is thirty-six.”
“Jesus.”
“Eliot, actually. Attention, please. Here comes another.”
Emily pulled off her jacket and dropped it to the sidewalk. “John!” she yelled. “John! Hey, John!”
The man on the opposite sidewalk paused. When he realized she was talking to him, he looked amused and shook his head.
“What?” She held her hand behind her ear. “Can’t hear you, John!”
“I’m not John!”
“What?”
“I’m not . . .” He gave up and detoured toward her.
“Verbal summons by name,” said Charlotte. “Two.”
Three women climbed out of a car, talking and laughing. “Hey! Free outfits!” Emily said. “First three customers!” Their heads turned. Emily pointed at the clothes store. “Up to two hundred dollars per customer!”
“Verbal promise of material reward by proxy. Three.”
The man reached her, smiling gently. “I think you’ve confused me with somebody else.”
“Oh, yeah.” Over his shoulder, a mother holding the hand of a young boy headed for the grocer. “Sorry about that. Ma’am! Ma’am! I need to talk to you about your son!” The woman glanced at her, then away. “Ma’am, there is something wrong with your son!”
“Did you say free outfits?” one of the trio asked her. She had a stud in her nose and outrageous mascara.
“Ma’am!” Emily yelled at the mother. “There is a real serious problem with your son! I’m not joking!”
The mother turned in to the grocer. Emily could read tension in her neck: She’d heard but chosen to ignore her.
She looked at Charlotte. “That’s only one strike, right, because they were together.”
“Correct. One strike.”
“I don’t see any signs,” said the mascara woman. “Do we just go in, or . . . ?”
“Yeah. Go in.” The middle-aged man was leaving, looking disappointed. She guessed he wanted to be John. But coming down the far sidewalk was a gaggle of college-age boys in baggy pants and muscle shirts. She opened her mouth, almost reused a method, then dropped to one knee. “Ow! Shit! Ow!” The boys’ heads turned. She pretended to try to rise. “Shit! Help!”
• • •
At eight-thirty, she removed her T-shirt. Beneath it she had a plain bra; she hesitated, then unhooked it. Her skin puckered. She waved to a group of boys gaping across the street. They looked at each other, laughed, and came within two feet of being cleaned up by a sedan on their way over. Emily glanced at Charlotte. “This is allowed, right?”
“Nonverbal sexual invitation. Nineteen.”
She thought she heard a tone. “Are you disappointed?”
“Actually,” said Charlotte, “I’m surprised you waited this long.”
“Check it,” snickered one of the boys. They clustered ten feet away, at the edge of the street, as if afraid to come any closer.
“Hey,” she said, “do me a favor. Go to that corner and don’t let anyone past you. Make everyone come over here.”
“What for?” said one. Another said, “I want to stay and look at your titties.” This cracked them up for a while. They were pretty young.
“I’ll make it worth your while.” There was a man coming: a big guy, with a shaved head and a black undershirt. “Real nice! Personal!” She didn’t know what she was saying.
The boys headed across the street. She pulled her T-shirt back on, to avoid breaking the rule about reusing a technique. Charlotte said, “I hope you’re aware that should your proxies redirect multiple groups, that will count as a duplicate method of persuasion, and therefore a strike.”
“Oh. Shit.” The boys were talking animatedly to the shaved head man, pointing at her. Behind them, a small group of elderly women approached. “Shit!”
“Twenty,” said Charlotte, as the man with the shaved head crossed the street. “Persuasion by proxy.”
“That’s enough!” she yelled at the boys. “Go away now!” But they were focused on
the old women. “You . . . dicks!”
The man with the shaved head reached her. His face was guarded; she had no idea what the boys had told him. Her bra was lying on the concrete, she noticed. She had forgotten it. “You okay?”
“They attacked me.” She picked up her bra and clutched it to her chest. “Those boys.”
While the man with the shaved head was beating up the boys, she got her bra back on. She pulled her hair free of the back of her T-shirt. The old women had backed up to the far corner and were waiting for the lights to cross. The sidewalk was otherwise empty. She had a minute. Charlotte said, “Diversion by physical threat. Twenty-one.”
“Oh my God!” she yelled, because a pair of middle-aged women were coming now. “It’s Demi Moore!” The women stopped. Emily pointed at Charlotte. “Can I have your autograph?”
Charlotte’s lips twitched.
“There is a similarity,” Emily said.
“Attraction by . . . feigned celebrity, I suppose. Twenty-two.”
“What’s a pass, again?”
Charlotte’s sunglasses regarded her. “Five.”
“Five,” Emily echoed. She felt good. A teenage girl in big headphones rounded the corner, heading down the sidewalk. Emily had no idea what she was going to say to the little whore, but it was something. She opened her mouth.
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[FIVE]
They left the freeway and passed through a series of snow-sunk towns. Wil fell asleep without meaning to and woke from guns and blood and dead girls. There was drool on his chin. In the high beams, the road glittered and vanished into night thick as a blanket. “Where are we?”
“Safe.” Tom peered at the road. “Almost.” They were slowing. The pickup truck’s lights swung across a driveway. Wil saw a wire fence and wooden posts and a sign that said: MCCORMACK & SONS STOCK SALES. They came to a stop and the pickup gargled. “Hmm,” Tom said.
“What?”
“Do you trust me?”
“Do I trust you?”
“I phrased that badly,” Tom said. “I mean, if I tell you your life depends on doing exactly as I say, without hesitation, can I rely on you to do it?”
“Sure,” Wil said, then, because that didn’t sound very plausible, added, “Maybe.”
“That’s not really good enough. Maybe leaves you maybe alive.”
“I thought we were meeting your friends.”
“We are.”
“So what’s the problem?”
Tom gazed at the sign. “Nothing. There’s no problem.” He harassed the gearshift. The truck rolled into the driveway. It was thick with mud, dark tire tracks clearly visible. Tom pushed them forward two hundred yards, then paused at a fork. To the left, the road disappeared into darkness. To the right was a bare light on a pole. Within its sphere of illumination lay nothing but mud. Tom steered toward it. Their tires slipped briefly, found traction.
“What is this place?”
Metal railings appeared beside them for a while, then vanished again. They entered an open expanse of mud. The ground seemed oddly chewed up. They reached the pole and came to a halt. The engine idled. Tom pressed a button; the doors went ka-chunk. He took the shotgun from the footwell and laid it across his lap.
“What are we doing?”
“Quiet.”
There was no noise but the engine. “Should I have a gun?”
Tom glanced at him.
“If we’re in danger, and I’m doing what you say, then how about I have a gun?”
“That would increase the danger,” Tom said. “To me.” He peered into the dark.
Wil saw motion in the darkness. A man ran toward them, waving his arms. His jacket blew. He had long, straggly hair. He reached the truck and slapped the hood, grinning. Wil’s window whirred down.
“Hey! Goddamn!” said the long-haired man. “Is this him? This really him?”
“Where are the others?” Tom said.
“Inside.” The man’s eyes crawled over Wil. “Holy shit, I cannot believe you found him.”
“I can’t see an inside.”
“There’s a house.” The man gestured into the dark, his eyes not leaving Wil. “Get out of the truck. I’ll take you in.”
“Where can I put the truck?”
“Don’t worry about the truck. Leave it. We’re gone in ten minutes.” The man tried Wil’s door handle. “Let’s move.”
“Why’d you come running out like that?”
“I’m excited, Eliot! I’m psyched!” He tried the door again. “This is what we’ve been working for! This gives us a fucking chance!” He grinned.
Tom’s head turned, examining the darkness. Wil didn’t know what he was looking for.
“We have the plane. Fueled up, sitting on a strip out back. We’ve got drugs, we’ve got a big fucking probe, twenty minutes we’re in the air and pulling this guy’s head open.” The man looked at him. “Nothing personal. But we need what’s in there more than you do.” He tried to rap Wil’s head with his knuckles. “Man! I could kiss you!”
Tom said, “You realize how much emotion you’re displaying right now.”
The long-haired man looked at him. Then he lunged at Wil, grabbing his head, his fingers raking his skin. He forced his shoulders inside the car. His shoes scrabbled at the door. Tom hit the gas; the truck lurched forward. The long-haired man yelped and slipped and for a second Wil thought he was going to be dragged right out of the car. Then the fingers lost their grip on his head and neck and the man disappeared.
“Fuck!” he said. “What’s happening?”
“Bad things,” said Tom.
“That’s your friend?”
“No. Not at the moment.” Metal gleamed ahead. It was railing, the same kind that had guided them down the driveway. For a moment Wil thought Tom was going to try to smash through it. Then they swung in a semicircle. The railing curved endlessly. “Oh, I see,” said Tom. “We’re in a pen.”
“A pen?”
“Cattle yard.” He backed the truck around. Now they were facing the light pole. The long-haired man shambled out of the light toward them. Tom shifted gears. The pickup’s wheels spun in mud.
“Oh,” said Wil. “Oh, wait, no.” The long-haired man grew in the windshield. At the last moment, Tom jagged left and the long-haired man thumped against the side of the truck. In the red glow of taillights, Wil saw him pick himself up out of the mud and begin to shamble after them. “You hit your friend,” Wil said.
Tom braked. Wil caught himself. He looked at Tom. “What are you doing?” Tom didn’t answer. “Your friend is coming.”
“Stop calling him my friend.”
“Well, that fucking guy is coming. He’s twenty feet away.”
Tom’s eyes flicked to the mirror.
“Seriously. Time to go.”
The long-haired man slapped the rear window. He ran to Wil’s door and tried to tug it open with one hand. The other hung at a broken angle. The man gave a frustrated cry. His fingers scrabbled against the glass. His eyes kept moving to Wil, tight and hungry.
“The driveway is a funnel,” said Tom.
“So let’s—” The man threw his head against the glass with a crack. “Let’s try something, you know?” Tom didn’t respond. The man head-butted the window again. “Please. Tom. Don’t make me sit here and watch this guy kill himself against the window.”
Light flared ahead. Wil shielded his eyes. Something coughed and snarled.
“Aha,” said Tom.
“What is that?”
“Truck.” Tom shifted into reverse and threw an elbow over the seat. “Big truck.” Ahead, the lights shivered. The snarl rose to a throaty roar. The man with the straggly hair fell to
the mud and rose again. They swung in a half circle and Tom threw them into drive. As they bounced away from the driveway, Wil saw darkness coalesce into a shape. It was an animal transport, as large as a house, a grille like a grin. Smoke belched from twin exhausts above its cabin. As it moved into the pen, light fell across bright red cursive script on its front: Faithful Bethany.
“We have to get out of here.” Their headlights bounced off metal railing. “Can we break through that?”
“No.” Tom hauled the wheel.
“How do you know? Maybe we can break—”
“If we could break through, they would have chosen somewhere else.” The transport filled the windshield. Tom accelerated toward it.
“What are you . . . what are you . . . Jesus!” He threw out his hands. Tom yanked the wheel. The pickup jumped. The transport clipped them and everything leaned and spun. Then the tires bit. They accelerated toward the driveway and freedom beyond for ten glorious seconds and then Tom braked again.
Wil, who had been straining forward, hit the dash and fell back in his seat. The pickup came to a halt at the driveway mouth. There were lumps in the mud. Big lumps. People, he saw. Three people, sitting.
“Who are they?” He looked at Tom. “Poets?”
“No.”
“Why are they just sitting there?” A woman had a short black bob. Behind her was a teenage boy. Then an older man with white hair. They were looking at the pickup, their faces washed out by its lights, not moving.
Light grew within the cabin. Wil turned. The transport vehicle had completed a slow turn and was trundling toward them.
“You bitch,” Tom said, like he was pointing out the sights. “You murderous, goddamn bitch.”
“Tom. The truck.” Tom revved the pickup’s engine, but did not shift gear. “The truck, Tom.”
Tom hauled the wheel. They accelerated alongside the railing, heading back into the pen. They gained speed and passed by the transport’s churning wheels. The straggly-haired man appeared. Tom jerked the wheel but they were going too fast and he bounced off the hood and over the roof. Railing appeared ahead. It looked as if Tom was going to try to crash through it, but Wil knew this couldn’t be the case, because Tom had said that was impossible, and then he realized it was, and closed his eyes.