The Resurrected Compendium Read Online Free PDF Page B

down. Destroying.
    “Cal. Get away.” Her voice sounded steadier than she’d expected it to, but Cal didn’t move. Abbie said his name louder.  
    Both men turned to look at her.
    Everything in front of her exploded.
    Every blossom had opened. A cloud rose and spread. It engulfed Cal and Renton like a million tiny black flies, mosquitos. Motes of dust. No, that wasn’t right, not insects Abbie’s mind insisted even as she clapped a hand over her mouth and nose and the swirling cloud surrounded her.
    Seeds?
    And just like that, they were gone. The pretty blue and purple flowers had already begun to turn brown. The child’s body had vanished, nothing but a scrap or two of blue pajamas left to prove it had ever been there at all.  
    Abbie breathed in, blinking, the smell gone and the taste of something sour on her tongue so brief it was possible she’d imagined it. She coughed into her fist. Cal had doubled over, coughing, and so had Renton, but the preacher stood up first. Dark flecks speckled his face but disappeared when he swiped at them.
    Cal stood too, looking like he meant to say something, but though his mouth opened all he could do was shake his head. He looked around at the destruction. His eyes closed. His shoulders drooped.  
    It was hardly her place to comfort him, but Abbie figured if she could have an orgasm or two with him, she could at the very least offer him a hand on his shoulder. Her fingers squeezed. He put his hand over hers and looked at her.
    “What was that?” She asked in a low voice, though the only person who could possibly have heard them had stumbled off to keen and pray over another corpse. “I mean…I never saw anything like it.”
    Cal shook his head again. “There’ve been stories, you know? Frogs raining from the sky because they’d been sucked up by a tornado and released miles away. Stones. There’ve been instances of infectious or airborne bacteria kicked up by storms. Maybe the flowers were something like that.”
    She could see no sign of them now, but that bittersweet taste remained. More a memory than anything else. She rubbed her tongue over her teeth as though she could scrape it off.  
    “I need to get to my ex,” Cal said. “There’s nothing I can do here for anyone. I have to make sure she’s okay. She’s pregnant.”
    He hadn’t mentioned that before, and Abbie’s hand fell from his shoulder. He gave her a small, strained smile. “Not mine. But that doesn’t mean I can’t make sure they’re all okay.”
    Abbie thought of her own two boys. Ryan had a girlfriend angling to become a stepmother. He had a new life. They all did, without her. She’d always been the bad that happened to them, yet…wouldn’t she have gone through anything to get to them, to make sure they were all right, if she knew something like this had happened to them?
    Of course she would.  
    “You can still come with me. I mean, I need to use your car. If we can get through here.” Cal looked again at the debris strewn over the road.
    Renton turned toward them. His white suit was filthy, but he stood up straighter than he had before. He lifted his eyes again toward the place he believed held heaven. Then he toppled over.
    “Oh, shit.” Cal sighed and took off at a trot. “Now what?”
    Renton’s face had gone white except for dark circles under his eyes and his lips, which were as purple as though he’d painted them with lipstick. He clutched his head as his back arched and his feet drummed a pattern into the mud. Then he went still.
    Abbie watched them, frozen, as Cal knelt next to him and listened first with an ear pressed to his chest. Then he tipped the man’s head back, put his hands on his chest. Began to push. Abbie’s hand pressed over her heart, the other to her stomach. Those were just two of the scars. Once, someone had worked over her this way. They’d saved her life. But it didn’t look like there’d be any saving of Renton, the Ice Cream Suit preacher, no