(LB1) Shakespeare's Champion by Harris Charlaine

Author:Harris, Charlaine [Harris, Charlaine]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 1997-03-23T07:00:00+00:00

I WAS LYING halfway on my right side, on something lumpy. Something else was lying on me. I was soaking wet. There were cold winds blowing in the church, and flames were flickering here and there. I was in hell. I watched the flames and wondered why I was so cold. Then I realized if I turned my head a little, I could see the stars, though I was in a building. This was remarkable; I should tell someone. The lights were out, but I could see a little. I could smell smoke, too, and the sharp smell of blood, and even worse things. And there was a heavy chemical smell overlaying everything, an odor that was completely new to me.

My situation isn’t good, I thought. I need to move. I want to go home. Take a shower.

I tried to sit up. I couldn’t hear a thing. That made my state even more surrealistic. With some senses so drenched with input and others totally deprived, it was easy to convince myself I was in a nightmare. I lost my place for a few minutes, I think. Then I reoriented, after a fashion. Someone was near me, I could tell, I could feel movement but not hear it. I turned painfully onto my back, put my hands on whatever was lying on my chest, and shoved. It moved. I tried to sit up, fell back. That hurt. A face appeared through the gloom in front of me. It was the face of Lanette Glass. She was talking, I could tell, because her mouth was moving.

At last she seemed to realize that she wasn’t getting through. She moved her lips slowly. I decided she was saying, “Where—is—Mookie?”

I remembered who Mookie was, and I remembered seeing her earlier. She had been on the other side of the church—that was where I was, in the Golgotha A.M.E. Church—and I’d glanced across at Mookie as she’d passed from the sanctuary into the foyer.

“Can you hear me?” I asked Lanette. I couldn’t hear myself. It was overwhelmingly strange. I thought of going to the dentist, not being able to feel your own lips after he filled a tooth. I went off course for a minute. Lanette shook me. She was nodding frantically. It took me another moment to realize she was letting me know she could hear me. That was great! I smiled. “Mookie is on the other side of the church,” I said. “In the foyer.”

Lanette vanished.

I wondered if I could stand up and go to a warm place and shower. I tried to roll onto my knees; I pushed against the thing underneath me, to flip from my back to my stomach. When I’d gotten that done, I saw the lump underneath me was the body of a girl, about ten or twelve years old. Her hair was elaborately decorated with beads. There was a sharp splinter protruding from her neck. Her eyes were blank. I closed my mind to that. I pulled up on a bench upended and aslant, propped against another bench.

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