Friends, lovers, enemies:
Viv and I are touched by your responses to our story—the comments, questions, heartfelt support, racist vitriol, all of it. We’re so happy you’re listening. Muchos gracias to the Church for covering our story every single day on the news! HUGE spike in page views. Apparently you weren’t convinced by that whole “God hates blogs” thing they attempted to make stick. Kinda sloppy, right? The Angels are losing their touch.
Sorry we haven’t been around lately. We’ve been busy collecting information about the Church with which to successfully overthrow them. I’ve got all my Muslim extremist buds on board—I called them and they were like, “Oh, totally, Harp, we are behind you one hundred and fifty percent!” and Viv was finally able to get in touch with her coven. But we’ve hit a wall, and we need your help.
Let’s talk about our missing fellow citizens, folks. I’ve gotten a lot of comments with possible leads; we seem to keep coming back to the same twelve cities: Billings, Boise, Boulder, Nashville, Cleveland, Fort Worth, Tulsa, Santa Fe, San Antonio, Minneapolis, Wichita, and Grand Rapids. But after that, the well runs dry. Folks in these cities, I beg you: LOOK AROUND. NOTICE ANY WEIRD NEW NEIGHBORS? FRESHLY-DUG GRAVES? These people went somewhere, and we owe it to them to figure out where. I know what you’re thinking: Harp, this post gravely lacks in your usual fast-paced wit and wordplay. And you’re right. But Viv and I are beginning to understand what the Church has planned for Apocalypse Day. And it’s big and it’s stupid and if it works, we’ll never be rid of them. So if you love this country the way we do, the things it’s really and truly about—the separation of church and state! Hot dogs on the 4th of July! Gratuitous sex and violence on primetime TV!—you’ll help us right this ship. Please, PLEASE, help us find the missing Raptured.
EAT A DICK, BEATON FRICK
xoxo, Harp Janda, Citizen
Things start to feel different in the weeks after Winnie stands up to Amanda for us. The soldiers seem to understand Amanda’s not in charge anymore, that she can be questioned. They’re looser now, less afraid. No one officially says that the attack has been called off—and Diego seems tenser than ever before; he still spends every night in West Hollywood, casing the Chateau—but I can’t blame them for wanting to believe it. The result is that they’re more relaxed and easy with us than they’ve ever been. Even Kimberly’s starting to crack—one morning before she leaves for training, she pauses in the doorway and turns to Harp and me, asking, with a slight hint of accusation, “Is it true that you two broke into the Chateau Marmont last week and snuck into Peter Taggart’s bedroom?”
“Who told you that?” I ask.
“Winnie told everyone yesterday at training. She said you went in through the kitchens and out through the fire escape, and didn’t get seen even once.”
“Yeah,” Harp replies in a cool, bored voice, focusing on her laptop screen. “It’s actually pretty easy to do, if you’re not completely stupid.”
Kimberly looks awestruck. She nods at us. “Respect, ladies. That shit is hardcore.”
Only Robbie treats us coldly now—I sort of think he’ll never forgive us. He’s always been quiet, but since Amanda caught us and he got the blame, he’s downright stony. If Harp or I so much as edge near him, his face turns a painful purple, and he pays such hard attention to everything that isn’t us, I wonder if he’s trying to will us out of existence. This makes it hard to apologize to him. One night after dinner, while we watch the Church of America News Network, I slip beside him and speak before he can notice I’m there.
“What we did was wrong,” I whisper. “It was disrespectful and we shouldn’t have done it. I’m so sorry we got you in trouble; I regret it—”
But he leaps to his feet before I can finish. “Do I have permission to go to bed?” he asks loudly of the room at large, and Winnie stares at him, confused.
“You’re a human being, Robbie. You never have to ask permission to go bed.”
He glares at her, then turns on his heel and stomps upstairs. Harp gives me a sympathetic look from across the room. She’s permanently attached to her computer now—in the last few days, she’s started what she calls “an intriguing correspondence” regarding the missing Raptured. But she won’t give me details, so I know the theory she’s been offered doesn’t satisfy her. Next to me, Julian chuckles.
“Don’t take it personally, Viv. He’s thirteen.”
“Yeah. I guess.” But that only makes me feel worse. I’m not that much older than Robbie. I remember how small and useless I felt at thirteen. I think of Robbie’s orphan status (“You choose the people who choose you,” I told him). It makes me sick to think how alone I’ve helped to make him feel.
“And anyway, maybe he’s just affected by the Santa Ana winds!” Julian wiggles his fingers, adopts a spooky old-movie vampire voice. I laugh weakly, and turn back to the television screen, where the weather report drones unsettlingly on.
But it’s hard to find much humor in the idea that the weather is turning us all into angry violent shells of our former selves, because to some degree, it seems to really be happening. Each day the Church of America News Network has some new horrible detail to report. Most of the major cities across the globe are beset by riots—ongoing collisions between protestors and police officers, fires, mass killings. Murder and suicide rates are at an all-time high. Midway through August, following reports that police officers nationwide have fled their positions in droves and that the National Guard has been stretched to breaking point, the President diverts federal funds towards the Church of America’s Peacemakers, giving them temporary but official status as guardians of the law. It’s a chilling development, but also it’s unclear how effective it is, because things continue to fall steadily apart. Here in Los Angeles, there’s a break out from Twin Towers Correctional Facility, which Masterson on TV casually attributes to the influence of Satan.
Soon, two weeks have passed. The militia still trains in the anticipation of the attack, but no one seems to know whether or not it’s actually happening. We haven’t seen Amanda since we got caught, and Diego shuts himself away, refusing to answer anyone’s questions about the campaign. Peter still conducts press conferences at the gates of the Chateau Marmont, so it’s clear he hasn’t successfully convinced the Church to move, and Harp’s blog commenters still offer largely unsatisfying conjectures as to where the missing Raptured can be found. My friends and I are running out of time.
When Harp and I were honest with Winnie about where we had been the night we were caught, Winnie made us promise we wouldn’t attempt a secret jaunt to see Peter again. I’m grateful to Winnie—I feel closer to her than ever before—but I still don’t know that I ever intended to keep the promise. One night, with only a week remaining until the proposed attack on the Chateau, I wait for the others to fall asleep around me, for the rustling of sheets and the sound of Harp’s typing to give way to deep breathing. When all is still, I climb out of bed and dress quietly in the dark, then pass through the door and down the stairs. I’m dizzy with the rush of having pulled it off, and I have a brief moment of delicious self-satisfaction—Hardcore! I congratulate myself, as Kimberly put it—thinking of Peter’s face when he sees me, how pleased and surprised he’ll be. I smile at the thought of it, and push open the door into The Good Book.
I freeze. A figure stands behind the counter, flipping through a magazine by the glow of her flashlight. She shines its light on me.
“J’accuse!” Winnie whispers.
She closes the magazine and bounds around the counter to where I stand, frozen, feeling like a fool in my black hoodie, my hand still on the knob. I brace for her anger—massive and totally righteous. Winnie stood up to Amanda for me—she put her livelihood on the line—and this is how I thank her? But when she gets closer, I see my sister is smiling.
“I had a feeling you’d try it again sometime,” Winnie explains. “I’ve been waiting down here the last few nights, wondering when you’ll make the attempt. Nothing feeds delusions of invincibility quite as effectively as sneaking in and out of Church of America headquarters without detection, am I right?”
“I just needed some fresh air,” I say in a tentative voice, and Winnie rolls her eyes.
“Seriously, kid, who taught you how to lie? Because you should really write them a sternly worded letter; they did not do a good job.” She gives me a gentle smile. “Come on, Viv. Let’s go upstairs, all right? There’s still some of Elliott’s vodka up there; let’s just hang out and have a nice chat about boys.”
It doesn’t sound entirely unappealing. But I stand my ground. “I have to go, Winnie. I have to see him.”
She looks disappointed. “Why?”
“Because … ” I wish I had an answer other than the silly-sounding truth. “Because I want to. I miss him, and I’m worried about him. Maybe I wouldn’t be quite as worried if I knew for sure that your boyfriend wasn’t going to go ahead with this attack.”
This hits a nerve. Winnie pulls back slightly, but then she sighs. “I wish I could tell you. But Diego won’t even talk to me about it right now. I have no idea what he has planned. The militia is against the idea, for sure—but they’re loyal to him, and he’s loyal to Amanda. If he decides it’s what we have to do … ” She trails off, sounding worried.
“Why are you with him, Winnie? I’m sorry,” I say, because she’s given me an annoyed look, “but I really don’t understand. He’s so—I don’t know—condescending. Like, why wouldn’t he just talk to you about whether or not he’s going to go through with the attack? You’re just as smart as he is, if not smarter. You’re just as brave as he is, if not braver.”
Winnie gives me a wry smile. “I think you have an inflated sense of my worth, Viv. But I’ll take it.” She pauses, thinking. “I don’t know. Is that an unsatisfying answer? I know what he is. I’ve been with him for a while now. He definitely gets confused sometimes—he manages to convince himself that he alone is responsible for taking down the apocalypse. Which you, by the way,” she notes, “can be just as guilty of. But I believe he has a good heart. And I don’t know! I just love him. Are you in love with Peter?”
She asks it like it’s the simplest thing in the world to know.
“I don’t know,” I say, truthfully. “He’s kind and good, and I think he’d be those things even if we didn’t live in this particularly messed-up world. But if I knew for sure I was going to live to a hundred and die peacefully in my sleep, would I want to spend that whole long life with him? I guess I’m not sure yet. I hope to make it to a point where I have the time to wonder about that.”
Winnie is quiet. After a long moment, she says, “I owe you an apology. I’d been assuming when you snuck out to see him, you’d be doing it in a brainless hormonal fog. But I should know you better than that by now.” She takes her keys out of her pocket and tosses them to me.
“I’m not your mother. If you think this is something you have to do, go ahead and do it. But for God’s sake—take care of yourself, okay?” She heads back to the red door, stopping before she passes through. “As soon as Diego tells me what’s going on with the attack, you’ll be the first to know. Okay? Be safe and hurry back—I’ll wait up for you.”
Driving past the Chateau a half-hour later, the hotel seems weirdly busy, blazing with light despite the late hour. I see a well-dressed crowd mingling in the lane leading to the entrance. I drive through the winding maze of streets on the hill behind the Chateau and park on the back road. As I make my way down the narrow street to the hotel, I wonder, Is this crazy? for the first time. The fact that Winnie let me go makes me think it isn’t, but then again, Winnie doesn’t always seem so very sane herself. I duck my head low; I’m considering how to get around the security camera outside the kitchen door. I don’t notice until too late a man in a white apron smoking a cigarette outside the gate, watching me approach.
I freeze. The man exhales a thin plume of smoke.
“Are you from the agency?”
Logically, I know this is the point where I should turn on my heel and run. But instead I say, “Yep?”
“Thank God.” He takes my hand, dragging me into the bright, bustling kitchen. He must feel me tug back in my fright, because his grip gets harder. “Oh no you don’t. You were supposed to get here two hours ago. Did you not bring a shirt?”
Panicked, I shake my head. The man groans, disappearing into a closet. It’s like I’ve been cut loose inside a nightmare; I’m taking a test in a language I don’t understand. Chefs are piling hors d’oeuvres onto wide shiny platters; bow-tied servers are standing by looking impatient. It’s confirmation, a little too late, of my suspicion: this was crazy. Why did I think I’d be able to pull it off? I have a brief flash of awareness of the nervous breakdown my old self—quiet, orderly Vivian 1.0—would have at this moment. But I don’t move. The man returns with a button-down white shirt and a bowtie I dutifully change into. He retrieves a white bonnet and jams it hard onto my head. “We’re never using your company’s services again,” he hisses before placing a tray covered in brimming glasses of champagne onto my arm and pushing me into the packed lobby.
It’s a small room, but so full it’s difficult to pass through. I feel slightly safe under the cover of the bonnet, but there are too many people here; it’s impossible to keep my eyes on all of them at once. I inch through the crowd, glancing around wildly for Peter. Everyone seems absurdly rich and very drunk. I notice with annoyance that there’s no adherence to modesty here: I see short skirts and plenty of cleavage, bare necks adorned by jewels. I guess if you have enough money, the Church will overlook a selection of your sins. I see Blackmore hunched low and murmuring into a miserable-looking Dylan’s ear; a woman trills loudly a few feet away and I realize it’s Michelle Mulvey. My arm begins to tremble. If I drop the tray, all eyes will be on me. I decide to abort; it’s time to bolt before anyone gets a good look at my face, but then the last glass of champagne is lifted from my tray and someone grabs my elbow.
“Seems like you need a refill. I’ll help.”
Peter. Relief floods through me; I struggle not to throw my grateful arms around him. He steers me by the elbow through the lobby and down an empty hallway. He hesitates before a large coat closet, then pulls the door open and throws me in, following quickly. He closes the door behind him. The closet is stuffy; it smells like ancient wool. Peter flicks on the bare light bulb above us.
“Have you lost your fucking mind?”
My knees go shaky and my breath is coming out in a ragged wheeze, but I laugh in spite of myself at the look on his face. “Possibly, Peter. I’m not going to lie to you: it is very, very possible.”
“This isn’t funny, Viv. It’s not safe. You could have been stopped on the way by a Peacemaker; you could have been stopped on the way by just a random crazy person. Last night someone pulled up to a car in front of the Chateau and shot three people dead inside. For no reason! And that’s just outside. This is the worst possible place for you to be. Mulvey was three feet from you! Do you have any idea what would have happened if you’d been seen?”
His voice is so angry. I feel annoyed, defensive. “I have, many ideas,” I say, ticking them off on my fingers: “The Angels capture me and kill me. They capture me, torture me, and then kill me. They make me tell them where Harp is, and they kill her, too. They string my body up on the Hollywood sign as a warning to slutty lying witches everywhere. At this particular point in my life, ideas about what will happen to me if I’m seen are pretty much the only ideas I have.”
Peter’s expression softens. He pulls me to him. “I’m sorry. I was just scared. When I saw you out there—it was like seeing a ghost. My heart stopped.”
“I know, I know. I was planning to be a lot stealthier than this, but the head waiter saw me and everything went to shit. Probably I shouldn’t have come in the first place, but I needed to see you. As far as we know, the attack is next week, Peter. Next week! Why are you still here?”
We break apart and I see the grave look on his face. “I tried to convince them something big was coming. But when I wouldn’t tell Blackmore the name of the donor who gave me the tip … I don’t know if he just doesn’t trust me anymore, or if he thinks I’m as crazy as my dad, but I’ve tried all I could and he’s not listening. You think they’re honestly going to go through with it?”
“I don’t know yet. We don’t have anything solid about the missing Raptured, and Amanda wants this place gone. It’s possible my sister’s group will refuse to go through with it, but even if they do—Amanda will find others. What about the Messiah? Any developments?”
Peter shakes his head. “I haven’t seen Blackmore meet with any actors in a while, but that could mean anything—maybe he was already cast; maybe I’m wrong about the whole thing.”
We stare at each other. Peter has a sad, helpless look on his face, and I feel like my head’s about to split open from stress. How easy everything would be, I realize, if I didn’t feel responsible for everything that’s coming, like Winnie says I do. If Harp and I had never driven to California, if we’d never seen Frick in the compound, I could just be like the thousands of other Non-Believers right now—frightened, clueless, waiting for the end, but without the excruciating feeling that change is right at the tips of my fingers, yet impossible to grasp. I feel like crying. But then I notice Peter’s mouth has flicked up into the barest hint of a smile.
“You look,” he says, “completely insane in that bonnet.”
I laugh loudly, and he covers my mouth with his own. I let the tray fall to our feet, and grab him by the lapels of his jacket. We’re being reckless and I know it, but something about him—the shape of his lips, the heat of his skin beneath his shirt, his grip at my waist—makes it worth the risk. He lifts me up and I slip my legs around his hips; he presses me against the wall of the closet and holds me there. When he finally pulls away, his hair is adorably messy and he wears a satisfied grin. He lowers me to the ground.
“They’re going to notice I’m gone, if they haven’t already. I should get back.”
“Stay here. Tell them you were trying to Magdalene a wayward caterer.” I tug at the front of his shirt, unwilling to let go. “You saw the lust in her eyes as she offered you caviar, and the Holy Spirit compelled you to show her the error of her sinful ways.”
Peter smirks, mischievous. “That might work. Unfortunately I’d have to admit defeat—you’ve still got, like, a ton of lust in your eyes.”
I lean in to kiss him again. “Maybe you’re not trying hard enough?”
“Vivian,” says Peter, fake-serious. “I swear on the Book of Frick that I’m never going to try very hard to get the lust out of your eyes. I really, really like it there.”
Again, a shadow of the old Viv passes over me. She’d be blushing right now, hiding her face from Peter’s sight, trying to convince herself he didn’t mean a word of it. How many simple pleasures I denied myself, because I thought that’s what goodness was. How stupid that it took me until the end of the world to realize it was something else entirely. Peter takes my hands into his and squeezes.
“When will I see you again?”
I shiver. “I don’t know. Before next Friday, for sure. If the militia decides to go through with the attack, I’ll come for you—Harp and I will come for you. We’ll get you and Dylan out of here.”
“That’s going to be harder than you’re making it sound,” Peter tells me. “And even if we pull it off—what about the rest of them?” He waves his hand in the direction of the party outside the door. “What happens to them?”
“I don’t know,” I say helplessly. “We’ll think of something, okay? I promise you we’ll think of something. In the meantime, keep trying to convince Blackmore that it’s a credible threat. The second I know what’s coming, I’ll be back to tell you directly.”
Peter says nothing, and I smile at him despite my nerves.
“Aren’t you going to tell me it’s too dangerous?” I ask. “It’s an unnecessary risk? You wish you could protect me; if anything ever happened to me, you’d never forgive yourself … ?”
“If anything happened to you,” Peter says firmly, “I’d never forgive the person who did it. But I’m not going to lecture you, Viv. Why would I? I’ve never met a person more adept at handling herself than you. The last thing my girlfriend—my smart, stubborn badass of a girlfriend—needs is my protection.”
I feel my cheeks go pink. Peter has always considered me ten times more capable than I consider myself. There’s something so intoxicating about being seen that way—the more convinced he seems of it, the more he convinces me. But that’s not the reason I feel a happy glow like a sip of whiskey warming my insides.
“You just called me your girlfriend.”
Peter kisses me lightly on my forehead, nose, lips. “Get a hold of yourself, Apple,” he says, before he heads back into the party. “I’ll give you my varsity jacket after we stop the apocalypse.”