Page 136 of Confessions of the Dead

Behind him, Robby softly said, “The lowest, blackest, and farthest from Heaven. Well do I know the way.”

Buck had no idea what the boy meant by that. He barely heard it, because he realized Ellie wasn’t alone in the icy waters of thatlake. He saw Evelyn Harper next to her. Josh Tatum. His wife, Lynn, both their children. The old man from the library. One of the women, too. What was her name? Gilmore, something. Edna? No, Arwa. That was it. Keith Gayton was there. Eisa Heaton. Her husband, Norman. People from town. Some he’d seen just in the past hours; others he hadn’t seen for years. They were all in that frozen lake, and somehow they were all still alive.

He turned back to Emily, his heart beating like a sledgehammer in his chest. “What the hell is this place?”

She eyed him with a sorrow so deep it pained him to look at her. “This is the end.”

“The end of what?”

“The end of all things.”

She gently stroked Rodney Campos’s arm and pointed out toward the center of the frozen lake. He followed her gaze, then nodded solemnly and stepped out on the ice. Began walking toward the middle.

For the first time, Buck noticed the deep red stains on Rodney’s shirt. Smaller in the front, much larger in the back.

Exit wounds.

He’d been shot.

He’s—

The realization struck him, and he knew he had to be dreaming. Dreaming. Having a nightmare. Caught on the back end of some bottle-induced hallucination. Anything but this.

But when he looked back at Emily, he realized it was none of those things.

This was happening.

This was real.

Out on the frozen water, Rodney stopped. He was about thirty feet from them when he turned and faced back in their direction. When he started to sink, he didn’t fight it. His body dropped slowly, like a man caught in quicksand. He stopped falling whenit crossed his upper chest. His face twisted, and the most horrible of screams escaped his lips. It might have made Buck go mad if it didn’t abruptly cut off when it did. Icy frost and black inched over him, froze him there, and while Buck wanted to believe the man no longer felt any of this, he knew the opposite was true—he felt all of it, and he would continue to feel it for all of eternity.

Emily had edged closer. “You shouldn’t be here. Not like this. This isn’t how you arrive. This isn’t your station.”

“My station?”

“Your place. Your purpose. Your end. Not yet. You need to leave.” She looked at Robby. “You, too. You both must leave, now.”

She stepped closer to Riley and examined the girl’s arms. As her fingers rolled over the names, they glowed brighter. “You represent the innocents. Those caught unintended, but here nonetheless. It is for those I grieve most. You will stay as I have stayed. A shepherd to those innocent. That is your station, Riley Sanchez.”

Buck shook his head and pulled Riley away from her. “The hell she will! None of us are staying.” He jerked a thumb down at Ellie and Evelyn in the water. “We’re taking them back, and we’re all going.”

“I didn’t say it was a choice. It is what’s meant to be. We can all only do what is meant to be.”

She looked back down at the frozen water, and a tear trickled from her eye as she focused on another body beneath the water.

Inches from her feet, just below the surface, was Emily Pridham.HisEmily Pridham. Exactly as she was the moment she disappeared all those years ago.

Her mouth twitched.

Frozen in the unholy lake, she managed a single word.

Buck.

108

Matt

GABBY WENT FOR THEColt. Matt had never seen her move so fast. She rolled to her right, grabbed the gun, and came up with it as McCormick squeezed off two rounds in Matt’s direction. The first struck the gym floor about a foot from his left hand, the second went wild, up toward the bleachers. Several people screamed, and Matt saw someone drop from above, roll down the wooden bleachers, and come to a stop at the base inches from the girl who looked a lot like Emily Pridham—Henry Wilburt—the town’s pharmacist. She reached down and grazed Wilburt’s cheeks with her fingertips, almost like an afterthought—

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