Children of the Goats, Part 4

The new kid showed up while Chris was in the middle of the story about the steamshovel.

He told the best stories, Fatima had ever heard. He could remember these amazing ones from before. Stories that didn’t have God or Jesus or anything. People would go do fun stuff that was really fun, and afterwards there wasn’t a lesson to repeat back.

Fatima didn’t stop working, because Hakim would get mad. He was already glaring at the group of kids hanging around Chris. Besides, she could hear just fine if she pulled up buckets of dirt close to where Chris was talking.

This story was about a steamshovel named Mary Ann, and how she dug super fast for her best friend Mike. It was Fatima’s favorite.

Hakim dropped his shovel and walked off. At first Fatima thought he was really mad, then she saw the new boy coming over the hill.

She dropped her bucket and went over to see. Hakim walked fast, and by the time she caught up, Hakim and the new boy were already talking.

“Jonas, right?” Hakim asked. “Your mom’s always making food for the orphans? With lots of boiled cabbage?”

Jonas ducked his head and nodded, staring down at the ground.

“What are you doing here?” Hakim asked. “Why are you digging?” He wasn’t angry, Fatima could tell by his voice. Just confused.

Fatima smiled at the new boy, Jonas. He was a bit smaller than Hakim but bigger than her, and white, with red hair.

“Jenny sent me,” he said.

Hakim rolled his eyes. He didn’t like the whole Jenny-business.

Jonas dug his toe in the dirt. “I want to help. You know,” he pointed at the hole, “dig.”

“Dig for what?”

“Are you snooping or something?” Chris walked up behind Fatima. “A tattletale? Gonna run tell Mommy and Daddy, and score points with Jesus?”

“No.” Jonas shook his head, keeping his eyes on his feet. “I...wanna help,” he mumbled. “Dig.”

“Why?” Hakim asked again. “Why do you want to dig?” He frowned.

“What makes you think we want you help, anyways?” Chris stepped forward.

Hakim put his hand out, stopping Chris. “No, he can stay. If he wants to dig, he can stay.”

“Oh yeah?” Chris asked. He turned to Hakim. “Who put you in charge?”

“You want to be in charge? Go dig your own hole.”

Chris glared. He jerked his hand like he was about to hit Hakim, but stopped. “Fine. But if Jesus-boy tattles, don’t blame me.” He walked off.

“Fine!” Hakim shouted. He turned to Jonas. “What are you waiting for? Go dig!”

It was really annoying how Hakim had longer legs than Fatima. Unfair. She was always running to catch up. Like now, when he saw Jonas walking home. He went way on ahead, really fast. She couldn’t keep up.

Fatima dashed down the road, finally reaching them. They were already talking, and Fatima caught the tail of Hakim’s sentence.

“Maybe I like boiled cabbage,” he said, which was stupid. He hated boiled cabbage, even now, after Jesus made everyone like vegetables. He’d sooner pick leaves off a tree for dinner than eat in the same house as boiled cabbage. Fatima knew. They’d done that once or twice.

Jonas looked straight ahead. “I don’t see why you have to get on me just because I have parents. I mean, why are all of you digging?”

“My mom and dad are in the pit,” Hakim answered. “Just about everyone in my family, except for me and Fatima. They’re in there, and they’re on fire until I dig them out.”

Jonas turned his head and looked at Hakim a moment. His lip wobbled like he was about to cry, but he bit it and kept walking.

No one said anything for a while. It was easier for Fatima to keep up, because Jonas was smaller, and he took slow, trudging steps that kicked up dust.

After a while, Hakim said, “You don’t have to tell me. I’m not gonna make you. You can still come dig if you want. But I really want to know why.”

Jonas. “I had...you remember when everyone was getting burned up in the sun, and no one could go outside?”

Fatima didn’t, but Hakim must have, because he nodded.

“Well,” said Jonas. “I had a big brother. Danny. A teenager. He had a dog, Max. Nobody in my family was Christians, then. One day the sun went weird, and set people on fire. Do you remember that? Everyone had to stay inside.”

Hakim nodded. Fatima didn’t remember it, but she thought she’d had to be inside a lot.

“It was nighttime, and we put cloth and wood over all the windows to keep the light out, and hid in my parent’s bedroom, because it had hardly any windows.”

“We hid in the basement,” Hakim said. “It was dark. Fatima was just a baby. Mommy had a radio. She told me to watch out for spiders and cockroaches, and make sure they didn’t crawl on Fatima.”

“We were supposed to bring the dog in,” Jonas said. “I think I was supposed to. But I forgot, and Mom and Dad were busy, and nobody brought the dog in. Then the sun came up.”

He took a deep breath. His hands balled up into fists. “I heard him out in the yard. Barking, then kind of whimpering. Then...screaming, sort of. Like how he’d yelp when he was hurt, but worse. Horrible. It went on forever. I wanted to got get him. But Dad said no, and Mom wouldn’t let go of me.”

He stopped, and took a few more breaths before speaking again. “Danny was bigger. And fast. He went out after Max. Dad ran out after him, but he must have made it outside before Dad could stop him. I didn’t see. Mom was holding on to me in the bedroom.”

He stopped again, and wiped his eyes with his balled-up hands. “I didn’t see, but I could hear him. Max had just stopped screaming. For just a second, everything was quiet, and I thought Danny had saved Max. But then Danny...started...screaming...” He pressed his hands against his eyes, and took a deep shaky breath.

“Dad came back afterwards. He wouldn’t talk. Mom took one look at him and started crying. I wanted to know where Danny was. Neither one of them would talk. They became Christians just after that. Because God burned Danny up. And I heard he’s still...burning...” He started crying, grinding his fists against his eyes like he was mad at something.

Fatima hung back a moment, then went over and patted him on the elbow. “It’s okay,” she said. “We’ll dig him out. We’ll dig everyone out.”

When they got to Jonas’s house, Hakim waved and led Fatima off. She knew he’d been making it up about the boiled cabbage.

“Listen,” he told her, when they’d gotten a bit away. “Don’t go around telling everyone about what Jonas said.”

“Why not?”

“Because.”

“Because what?”

“Because...” Hakim frowned again, and waved his hand for a bit. “Just because. Don’t. It’s not cool, okay? He didn’t tell everyone. Don’t say anything.”

“Okay.” Fatima nodded. She didn’t see why. If everyone knew about Jonas’s brother, they’d understand. But Hakim knew these things, so she kept her mouth shut.

Children of the Goats, Part 3

Chloe was in the kitchen when Tsion Ben-Judah arrived. She had a pot of vegetable soup on the boil, and was throwing together a quick salad, when he popped his head in. “Need a hand?” he asked.

“No thanks, I’ve got it all under control.” She tossed the lettuce. “So, how is everything?”

“Confusing.” He frowned. “Jesus keeps telling me something, but he won’t explain. Every time I pray, I get the same message, ‘Be watchful’, but he won’t tell me what that means.”

“God answers our questions in his time, not ours.” Chloe smiled, feeling a moment of...satisfaction at her ability to find such a pious answer. How far she’d come from the days where she’d questioned and picked at everything, subjecting it to the harsh light of intellect! How she’d grown in faith!

“I know,” Tsion nodded. “I’ve prayed for contentment and faith. But Jesus would have me watchful, and I don’t know what to watch. I mean we’re supposed to have a thousand years before Satan returns with his hordes...” He stopped.

“What is it?” Chloe asked.

“There it is again. Be watchful. Watch what?”

Kenny came tearing through the kitchen, trailing a pack of little boys. “Hi, Mom! Is it okay if I bring some friends for dinner?”

Chloe glanced over at the boys. They were mostly about Kenny’s age, with a few older ones. A rather grubby black boy stood in the back, scraping his muddy feet on the welcome mat. She subdivided the soup and salad, and came to a conclusion. “Sure, honey. I’ll just call Irene, and see if she can bring a dish of buttered vegetables to round out the meal. And I think your little friends,” she paused, glancing meaningfully at the black boy in the back, “should get cleaned up properly. What is it you kids play at that gets you so dirty, anyways?”

“I don’t know, Mom.” Kenny grinned. “I stay nice and clean. See?” He held up his hands for her inspection.

“Yes you do, dear. Very good. Now show your friends where to wash up, and you might want to lend...Chris, right? Lend Chris a nice clean outfit.”

As the kids tromped out, Chloe smiled at Tsion. “There’s some sort of trend going on. Mud pies, or mud-ball fights or something. I don’t know what. Half the kids are into it, and it involves getting really dirty.”

“Kids,” Tsion nodded. “Would you like a hand now? I do a mean fruit salad.”

Chloe sighed, glancing down at her salad bowl. “With Kenny’s friends eating here, I get the feeling the more food, the better.”

Children of the Goats, Part 2

Chloe frowned. That was the sixth kid she saw tracking past, covered in dirt. She didn’t normally mind a bit of mud, as long as they washed before they went inside, but this was getting downright weird. There was another one, a little blonde girl with a garden spade shoved in her pocket, her knees covered in black mud.

“Excuse me,” Chloe called. “Excuse me. Suzy?” The girl was called Suzy. A COT, as Buck would put it, a Child of Tribulation. Cameron, she silently corrected herself, he’s called Cameron now. Not Buck. There’s nothing to buck here. She needed to remember that. It was part of God remaking them according to his will. She needed to embrace that.

Suzy glanced up, startled. “Yes, Mommy Chloe?”

That’s right, Chloe remembered, she didn’t have a family. Her parents had been Carpathianists. They’d died in the last battle.

Chloe knelt down and smiled. “Have you been playing in the dirt, sweetie? Gardening?” Gardening wasn’t exactly necessary these days, with all plants being edible (and reasonably tasty), but a lot of people did it as a hobby, or a trade. You were more likely to get certain kinds of food with a bit of work. God helps those who help themselves, after all.

Suzy nodded, wide-eyed. “Playing. There was a big empty spot. I didn’t think anyone would mind.” She looked oddly frightened.

A wave of pity swelled in Chloe’s heart. Christ alone would know what that poor child had been subjected to, with a Carpathianist upbringing. “Of course not.” She ruffled Suzy’s hair. “As long as you’re not hurting anything, play where you like. Just make sure you clean up properly, and put the shovel back when you’re done. And remind your little friends to do the same think, okay?”

Suzy nodded.

“Run along now,” Chloe said.

Little Suzy dashed off. Chloe smiled. “Bless her, Jesus,” she prayed. “Bless all their little hearts.”
As always, when she prayed, she felt an answering rush of pure love.

---

“I didn’t tell anyone!” Fatima yelled. She hadn’t. Okay, if she had told, she’d have picked Zayna, and Suzy. They were friends of hers, the same age, and their parents were in the pit, too. And they weren’t weird, like Kenny or Michelle who prayed a lot, and told Jesus everything. But she didn’t even know some of the other kids. There were a couple of older boys; a skinny black kid and a shorter blond-haired white one. They both looked about Hakim’s age, which made them just about the oldest kids there were. And two little white girls who Fatima had never seen before stood at the edge of the pit, looking shy and clutching plastic beach shovels.

“How’d they find out then?” Hakim snapped. “I didn’t say anything!”

“Hey,” said the black kid. “The little girl didn’t say anything. It was a different girl. Said her name was Jenny.”

“Jenny?” Hakim frowned. “I don’t know any Jenny.”

“Tall girl? Black hair? Looked older? Maybe twelve?”

Hakim shook his head. “She can’t be twelve. No one’s twelve.”

“I don’t know! She looked twelve.”

Suzy tugged on Hakim’s elbow. “What are we supposed to do?”

Hakim looked down. “Dig.” He sighed. “Fatima, show them.”

Fatima let Suzy and the other kids down the bottom of the hole. She showed them the garden bucket she’d borrowed, and the pile a few feet away where she and Hakim had been dumping the dirt.

By then, the black kid seemed to be finished talking with Hakim. He climbed down into the hole, and unfolded the shovel he’d brought; a square-ended thing, about as long as Fatima’s arm. It had a joint that could bend halfway down the handle.

“What’s that?” Fatima asked. She’d never seen anything like it. She just had an ordinary garden spade.

“It’s a camping shovel,” the boy replied. He held it out for her to look at. “My...father had it. We had to hide out in the hills for a while, after things got really crazy. He used to dig latrines with it.”

“Latrines?”

“Toilets.” The boy grinned. “We didn’t have proper toilets, so we’d have to poop in a hole.”
“Gross!” Fatima jumped back, dropping the shovel.

The boy laughed. “Don’t worry. The shovel was for digging in dirt, not poop.” He picked it up. “I’m Chris. What’s your name?”

“Fatima. I’m Hakim’s sister.”

“Nice to meet you.” Chris smiled and shook her hand.

Fatima grinned up at him. “Can I try your shovel?”

---

Hakim shook his head. "There's more of them."

Fatima looked up. Three girls had just come over the hill. They were all carrying shovels. Long shovels; grown-up size. She didn't know any of them. "Isn't that good?" she asked. More kids meant more digging. The hole was growing a lot faster now.

"There's too many." Hakim stood up. "If we keep getting more kids, we're gonna get caught." He pulled himself out of the hole, and walked over to the new kids.

Fatima watched from the edge of the hole, where she was hauling up buckets of dirt on a string. It was her idea, the string. Faster than climbing in and out of the pit. Hakim had called her clever for coming up with it.

"What are you doing here?" she heard Hakim ask.

The one in front, a tall black girl nearly Hakim's age, helt out a shovel. "We came to dig."

"How'd you know about the digging?"

The girl shrugged. "Jenny told me."

"Who's Jenny?"

Fatima ducked her head and hauled dirt. Hakim always asked this, and never got an answer. Never any more answer than Chris gave the first day. Some girl. Looked older than she could be. They wouldn't know her; no one knew Jenny. She was just some girl who knew about the hole.

Hakim wouldn't like it. He never liked it. But he'd let the girls dig, because the hole grew faster. That's what he always did.

Dead-Cat Bounce

It took Chloe a second to notice the woman with the bundle. If she hadn’t been stuck in traffic she might not have seen anything at all.

She was driving her father’s car back from the airport, glad to finally get a moment alone. She loved her father, she’d swear to G...she’d swear she did, but she was exhausted after being around him all week. The world had gone insane, and there he was, with his weird new religion, acting like he had all the answers. Sometimes she just wanted to grab him and scream, “Your God stole Raymie! He stole Mom! Why worship that?”

But with Mom and Raymie gone, Dad was all she had left. So she put up with him; she had to. And it was easier to offer to drive his car than explain how his lectures on religion (and constant meaningful looks) were driving her up the wall.

She was idling at a stop light when the woman walked past. For few seconds, Chloe didn’t notice anything strange. The woman looked fairly normal, for the most part, wearing a sweatshirt and jeans, a bag slung over one shoulder, and a rolled-up blanket in her arms. And Chloe had seen women clutching blanket-wrapped bundles like that hundreds of times. It wouldn’t have meant much last week.

By the time Chloe’s brain caught up with her eyes, and she turned to watch, someone on the sidewalk had grabbed the woman and started screaming. It was another woman; middle-aged, wearing a gray overcoat. Chloe couldn’t hear much at first, but when she rolled down the passenger window, she caught snatches of what the older woman shouted.

“Disgusting...shouldn’t...in public...mad bi...locked up!” Fragments of phrases rang out over the traffic noise. That woman must be screaming at the top of her lungs, Chloe thought. Had she lost her mind?

Chloe couldn’t tear her eyes off that scene, or that one little bundle that couldn’t possibly mean what she thought. There was no way, she knew. Absolutely no way. Not just the one baby, kept like that, and carried so casually down a public street. But just in case (in case this woman had solved it, fixed it somehow and they were all coming back, Raymie and Mom were coming back!) she didn’t dare look away.

“Goddamned loony!” the woman in the gray coat screamed. She tried to take the bundle away. The other woman clutched at it, and they started wrestling at each other, like some mad tug-of-war. A man stepped in, and tried to pull them apart.

The man’s shove sent both women staggering back. The older woman’s arms flew out, smacking the man in the face. The bundle flew out of the younger woman’s arms and landed in the street.

In front of Chloe.

With the blanket unraveled, it was a cat. A little gray cat; dead and horribly stiff. The head was twisted sideways, and the legs splayed out. The fur was coming off in patches.

Chloe wondered if that woman had killed it herself.

Hearing a horn honk behind her, Chloe glanced up. The light was green. She didn’t know how long it had been green. By the chorus of honks, a few seconds at least.

She stepped on the accelerator just as the light turned yellow. She felt her tires roll over a small bump in the road. And behind her, she heard an anguished howl.

She didn’t look back. She didn’t dare look back.

With the rush-hour gridlock, she couldn’t pull over for miles. She had to keep driving with her hands shaking, worried that she might crash. When she finally found a quiet street, she parked and got out of the car.

There was a bit of fur stuck to her front tire, and something wet she didn’t want to look at.

Chloe bent forward, her hands on her knees, fighting back waves of nausea. It was only a dead cat, really. It shouldn’t be that bad.

For the first time, she felt a twinge of envy for her father. It all seemed so much easier for him. He had his God. And she could guess how much value his God would put on a dead cat.

She could do it. Convert. It would be easy. Recite the right prayer. Ask forgiveness for her sins. Every time she’d stayed out drinking, every stolen paperclip, every fib. Every time she’d let some boy get his hand under her shirt. She could pray, and be sorry, and promise God that she’d be a good girl from now on. It would be the easiest thing in the world. And God, who was beginning to look frighteningly real, could be the answer to all her worries.

But she didn’t have any answers for the dead cat. Maybe she should have gotten out of her car and helped the crazy woman. Maybe she should have called someone. Maybe she should have stopped and given the woman back the cat. She should have done something, though. She didn’t know what. Something.

Chloe knew what her father would say. That woman deserved what happened, and worse. Chloe deserved everything that happened, and worse. They were in a fallen world, and the only people who didn’t deserve to suffer like that had been whisked off to Heaven with Mom and Raymie. Right this moment, Chloe wished she could believe something that simple. At least that made some kind of sense.

Chloe straightened up. This was crazy. It was just nerves getting to her. She’d go home and get some rest, maybe call her friends from school to find out if they were okay. She’d call Kim. Poor Kim, who’d gotten into Buddhism in college, came from a family of Southern Baptists. When Chloe had last seen her, she hadn’t managed to contact any relatives at all.

Chloe got back in the car, and took a deep breath. She’d go home, and get a break from this craziness before her father got back with the groceries. Maybe read or watch something about what was going on that wasn’t from Mom’s weird church. Talk to someone who wasn’t trying to save her soul. Just a bit of calm, a brief stretch of something resembling normal, and she’d be able to think.

Just a few hours of calm back home, and it would all look more manageable. She might even be able to cope.

Children of the Goats, Part 1

“What are you doing?” Fatima asked. “Playing? Can I play?”

Hakim looked up from the bottom of the hole. It was a big hole, deep enough that he could kneel in it, and he was a lot bigger than Fatima. Next to the hole was a huge pile of dirt. She couldn’t imagine how long it took to dig all of that. He must have been digging all day!

Hakim wiped the sweat from his forehead, leaving a smear of dirt. “Do you remember Mom?”

Fatima frowned. “You mean Mommy Chloe, or Mommy Irene, or Mommy...”

“No.” Hakim shook his head. “Our mom. Our real mom. From before. Do you remember her?”

“I don’t know.” Fatima sat down on the edge of the hole. It was hard to remember anything from before. She’d been really little when Jesus came. Some of the grown-ups talked about before, about Sin and Iniquity (she didn’t know what Iniquity was, but it sounded bad), and Tribulation, which sounded bad but was supposed to be good. Sometimes she thought she remembered bits, like Mommy brushing her hair, or the smell of Grandma's cooking, but these never sounded like Tribulation and Iniquity, so she wasn’t sure she was right.

Hakim put a grubby hand on her shoulder. “Try. Think. She had black hair that was really long and pretty and shiny. She smelled like flowers. She used to sing us songs before bed, and kiss us good night. You’d go out in the garden while she was working and pull plants apart. She taught you to pull weeds so you didn’t destroy the vegetables. You have to remember something. It’s important.”

...

"Daddy Cameron?"

Cameron looked down. A little girl was tugging on his pants-leg. Fatima; that was her name. Six years old, he thought. Somwhere around that age. One of the COTs; the Children of Tribulation. No parents; that made her the duty of him and all of the resurrected to guide and care for. He smiled. "Yes?"

"Where's my mommy?"

Cameron took a deep breath. He'd been anticipating that question. He'd always thought it would be awkward, but right that moment, miraculously, he didn't feel awkward at all. Thank you Jesus, he thought.

He bent down and put his hands on his knees. "You remember the Judgment, with Jesus and the Pit?” She’d have been what, four or five then?

She nodded, looking solemn. "Yes."

"All the saved people got to come to paradise and the unsaved people were cast into the Pit of Fire."

She nodded again.

"Well," said Cameron, putting his hand on little Fatima's shoulder, "your parents weren't saved."

Fatima's eyes went wide. "So they're down in the pit?"

Cameron nodded. "Yes they are. But don't worry. As long as you accept Jesus, you won't have to die and go in the pit. You can live a thousand years up here, and have eternity with Christ."

Her lip wobbled. "Did Jesus put them in the pit?"

"Yes." Cameron patted her on the shoulder. "People who decide for Jesus get to live up here and then go to Heaven forever, but the people who don't are cast into the Pit of Flames. So it's very important to trust and love Jesus, understand?"

"I understand," said Fatima.

...

"Hakim?"

The boy looked up from his digging. "What?"

"You were right. Mommy's down there. In the ground. Daddy Cameron said." Fatima climbed down to the hole. "Give me a shovel."