She noticed two more bottles down on the floor, right where he could reach them without moving.

“It’s a mortal sin,” she said, feeling like a stupid fool. The very word “sin” felt like a sin when she spoke it.

Hypocrite, she berated herself silently. Fraud.

“If you do this, you’ll have no chance to repent,” Astrid said. “You’ll die with a mortal sin on your conscience.”

“Got that already,” Orc said.

“But you’re sorry for that. You’ve thought about it. And you’re sorry for it.”

Orc sobbed suddenly, a loud sound. He tilted his head back and she saw the last of the bottle drain into his mouth.

“If you’ve asked for forgiveness, and if you felt truly sorry, then God has forgiven you for that little boy.”

The bottles weren’t corked, just sealed with a piece of Saran Wrap and a rubber band. Orc pulled the plastic off a second bottle.

“There’s no God in the FAYZ, didn’t you know that?” he said.

Chapter Thirty-Two

3 HOURS, 48 MINUTES

SAM FIRED. THE beams of light hit the hovering bug squarely. The rays of light bounced and fragmented, steaming the water.

“Dekka!” Sam yelled.

She killed gravity beneath the hovering bug so that it shot suddenly upward followed by a swoosh of rising water.

But it was no good. More of the creatures were opening their roachlike wings and flying awkwardly out toward the boat.

Sam cursed. He threw the engine into gear and spun the wheel. The boat zoomed toward the middle of the lake.

The bugs tried to chase, but they were insects, not eagles, and their flight was jerky and poorly controlled.

“I can maybe crush them,” Jack said over the roar of the engines.

“He believes he maybe can,” Toto commented.

“But they scare me.”

“That is true, too,” Toto said.

“Yeah, I could have guessed that,” Sam yelled as they dodged another lumbering creature.

They could keep dodging the bugs, maybe forever, but when Sam tapped the gas gauge it showed just an eighth of a tank.

There was a hand pump built into the dock’s gas tank. But it wasn’t as if Drake would let them pull in and refuel.

“We need gas,” Sam said.

He headed the boat away from the marina, keeping close to the shore, hoping Drake’s creepy army would follow. They were faster on land than in the air so they zoomed in their crazy bumblebee way back to land on shore.

He looked back and saw Drake urging the creatures on. They were quick, skittering on their insect legs. But not quite as fast as the boat. At top speed he could pull away.

“Are we running away?” Toto wondered.

“Yes,” Sam snapped.

“That’s not true.”

“Is there any way to shut you off?” Sam demanded. “We’re faster than they are. So we’re going to draw them off, double back, and beat them back to the marina.”

“Then what?” Dekka asked.

“We gas up and drive around out here forever,” Sam said.

“Great plan,” Dekka said.

“Sooner or later Drake gives way to Brittney. We might have a shot then.”

It didn’t take long at full speed to reach the end of the lake. The huge roaches swarmed along the shore, rushing eagerly to catch up. None were airborne now.

“Where’s Drake?” Jack asked.

Sam scanned the insect army. No sign of Drake. Sam killed the engine, saving gas for the mad dash back to the marina. In the sudden quiet he heard a different engine.

A sleek boat with two big outboards was throwing up a cloud of spray and whump-whumping toward them. There could be no doubt as to who was driving the boat.

The bugs on the shore. Drake on the water.

“If he has a gun, we’re in trouble,” Dekka said.

“He doesn’t need a gun,” Sam said grimly. “He can ram us. He’s unkillable, we’re not.”

“What do we do?” Jack asked. Then, more panicked, “What do we do?”

Dekka put a calming hand on his shoulder. “Take it easy.”

Sam measured the shoreline, checked the gas supply, glanced at his two friends, and finally appraised Toto.

“Dude, do you think you can pump gas?”

Toto looked away and passed the question along to the imaginary Spidey head. “Can I pump gas?” Then, apparently hearing an answer, he said, “Yes.”

Sam fired the engine up. He turned the wheel, waited, waited, as Drake’s bow wave grew large.

“Jack. Grab that boathook. And be ready.”

“What?”

“You ever see that movie where Heath Ledger was a knight?”

“Not his best movie,” Dekka said.

“True,” Toto agreed.

“Hold on,” Sam warned. He put the engine into gear, pushed the throttle all the way, and flew toward Drake.

Lana did not run, she was too tired for it, and anyway Howard was probably wrong. Turk and Lance surely did believe they’d killed Albert. As he’d laid there, shrieking in pain beneath Lana’s healing touch, Lance kept babbling something about forgiveness, praying to be saved, saying he was sorry for Albert. “It was Turk, it wasn’t me!” he’d said, his destroyed cheek flapping bloodily with each word as the drenching rain swept the blood down to the carpet beneath his head.

Lana had mostly healed Turk and Lance. They wouldn’t die, at least. She hadn’t much seen the point: they were scum and someone would only have to kill them all over again, sooner or later. But she supposed it wasn’t her decision to make. She was just a player in the madness.