“Help me save my sister and then I’ll help you find your brother.”
“Help you?”
He nods.
“Because,” he says, “she’s a kid too, and she’s all alone, and the monster has her, and she’s here. And it’s something to do that’s not sitting on the floor feeling terrible.”
“My parents died.”
“I know, and I’m sorry, but nothing’s gonna get fixed staying here. And I don’t know if the kid is right, the—whaddaya—Prophet, that God talks to him and we have to do this so that we can start over, humanity, but what if he is? What if this is the moment? What if this is history? Aren’t you tired of talking about everything? Always saying something’s wrong, but nobody ever does anything. All they do is tell you there are rules, systems? Well, fuck it. I’m done talking. We save her, we save your brother, and then we find this utopia he keeps talking about and start over.”
For a long time she says nothing, and he worries he’s lost her for good. But then she closes her eyes and nods. “Okay.”
They spend the next three hours planning their assault on the Wizard’s compound—scouring the fuzzy map on Google Earth for entry points, blind spots, et cetera. The compound has been smudged in the satellite image, but they find old photos online and study them for details. Who knew there was a price you could pay to literally erase your home from the map?
“Is that a helipad?” asks Louise, pointing at the blurred image. They gather around, squinting. None of them know how to ground a helicopter without shooting it from the sky. For a moment they’re silent. The only way they can think to rescue Bathsheba is to die trying, which—Flagg says, fine with him. He knows what the rest of them aren’t willing to say out loud, that blood is about to be shed, and nobody goes to war hoping for a tie. In the middle hours of the night, they map out their options—Samson attacks from here, Simon vaults the wall there—but every scenario ends in death. They are a ragtag group of kids, planning an assault on a fortress defended by special forces. The best they can hope for is chaos and luck.
And then Simon has an idea so simple, so foolproof, it leaves them all light-headed. He sees past the battlefield, past the objective, to the heart of human nature itself. As soon as he says the words out loud, the room realizes that this is what they must do. The Prophet kneels before Simon and kisses his feet.
“I told you,” he says, and Simon blushes.
With renewed vigor, they fortify themselves for the attack to come. They pack their vehicles with stolen loot and load their weapons. Their plan is to leave at dawn. Everyone has a job, even Avon, who wakes around 4:00 a.m., and offers advice on their plan. He’s the one who tells them that if they soak tennis balls in gasoline and fire them through the windows of the house, they can create what he calls “a hell of a diversion.” He shows them how to turn the small camping stove propane tanks into bombs. To Samson’s surprise, he doesn’t shit all over their strategy, doesn’t try to force his own adult plan on them. Avon seems to understand something fundamental in his vulnerable state, which is that his time deciding things is over. It’s their turn now. All that’s left for him is to defend the decisions he’s made, the ones worth saving. And the only ones that seem to matter right now are his children.
Do they overpack? Maybe. But they know that the key to victory is to make themselves look like an army, an overwhelming force. Only in this way can they force the Wizard to make a mistake.
At 5:13 a.m. they’re ready. They will take separate cars, will rally at the rallying point. Before they leave, they set all the animals in the pet store free, dogs and cats, snakes and hamsters. The Prophet blesses them with water from the plastic cooler before throwing open the doors.
“There will be no pets in the new world,” he says. “No supremacy of human beings. The Anthropocene era is over.”
Out they go, two by two, cats and mice, rabbits and beagles, trailed by a single lonely iguana.
Simon’s plan has him riding with the Prophet and Flagg. They will be the endgame, the final line of defense. Together they load up the Kia. Flagg finds a tin of chewing tobacco in the sporting goods store, and he chews a wad now, spitting watery brown chaw onto the asphalt. Simon goes to find Duane.
“Hey,” he tells the older boy, trying to sound casual. “I’ve gotta go do this crazy rescue thing now.”
“Which was your idea,” says Duane.
“I know, I just—I like you, okay, and I don’t know if you—but seeing as how I’m probably gonna get killed, I thought I should say the words out loud, and see.”