44
" Hunter’s entire body writhed and squirmed.
The side of his head was partly gone. A creature, like some monstrous melding of insect and eel, protruded from Hunter’s shoulder and as they stood there rooted in horror it took a vicious bite of Hunter’s flesh.
Taylor was suddenly gone.
Dekka’s face was grim, her eyes wet.
“I tried . . . ,” Hunter said. He held up his hands, mimicked pressing them against his head. “It didn’t work.”
“I can do it,” Sam said softly.
“I’m scared,” Hunter said.
“I know.”
“It’s ’cause I killed Harry. God has to punish me. I tried to be good but I’m bad.”
“No, Hunter,” Sam said gently. “You paid your dues. You fed the kids. You’re a good guy.”
“I’m a good hunter.”
“The best.”
“I don’t know what’s happening. What’s happening, Sam?”
“It’s just the FAYZ, Hunter,” Sam said.
“Can the angels find me here so I can go to heaven?”
Sam didn’t answer. It was Dekka who spoke. “Do you still remember any prayers, Hunter?”
The insectlike creature was almost completely emerged from Hunter’s shoulder. Legs were becoming visible. It had wings folded against its body. It looked like a gigantic ant, or wasp, but silver and brass and covered with a sheen of slime.
It was emerging like a chicken breaking out of an egg. Being born. And as the creature was born, it fed on Hunter’s numbed body.
Jerky movements beneath Hunter’s shirt testified to more of the larvae emerging.
“Do you remember ‘now I lay me down to sleep’?” Dekka asked.
“Now I lay me down to sleep,” Hunter said. “I pray the Lord my soul to keep.”
Sam raised his hands, palms out.
“If I should die—”
Twin beams of light hit Hunter’s chest and face. His shirt caught fire. Flesh melted. He was dead before he could feel anything.
Sam played the light up and down Hunter’s body. The smell was sickening. Jack wanted to look away, but how could he?
Sudden darkness as Sam terminated the light.
Sam lowered his hands to his side.
They stood there in the darkness. Jack breathed through his mouth, trying not to smell the burned flesh.
Then they heard a sound. Many sounds.
Sam raised his hands and pale light glowed.
Hunter was all but gone.
The things that had been inside him were still there. "
― Michael Grant , Plague (Gone, #4)
45
" With the passage of days in this godly isolation [desert], my heart grew calm. It seemed to fill with answers. I did not ask questions any more; I was certain. Everything - where we came from, where we are going, what our purpose is on earth - struck me as extremely sure and simple in this God-trodden isolation. Little by little my blood took on the godly rhythm. Matins, Divine Liturgy, vespers, psalmodies, the sun rising in the morning and setting in the evening, the constellations suspended like chandeliers each night over the monastery: all came and went, came and went in obedience to eternal laws, and drew the blood of man into the same placid rhythm. I saw the world as a tree, a gigantic poplar, and myself as a green leaf clinging to a branch with my slender stalk. When God's wind blew, I hopped and danced, together with the entire tree. "
― Nikos Kazantzakis
49
" The thing is, someday the sun is going to die and everything on Earth will freeze. This will happen. Even if we end global warming and clean up our radiation. The complete works of William Shakespeare, Monet’s lilies, all of Hemingway, all of Milton, all of Keats, our music libraries, our library libraries, our galleries, our poetry, our letters, our names etched in desks. I used to think printing things made them permanent, but that seems so silly now. Everything will be destroyed no matter how hard we work to create it. The idea terrifies me. I want tiny permanents. I want gigantic permanents! I want what I think and who I am captured in an anthology of indulgence I can comfortingly tuck into a shelf in some labyrinthine library. "
― Marina Keegan
50
" Life for both sexes--and I looked at them, shouldering their way along the pavement--is arduous, difficult, a perpetual struggle. It calls for gigantic courage and strength. More than anything, perhaps, creatures of illusion as we are, it calls for confidence in oneself. Without self-confidence we are as babes in the cradle. And how can we generate this imponderable quality, which is yet so invaluable, most quickly? By thinking that other people are inferior to oneself. By feeling that one has some innate superiority-- it may be wealth, or rank, a straight nose, or the portrait of a grandfather by Romney-- for there is no end to the pathetic devices of the human imagination-- over other people. "
― Virginia Woolf , A Room of One's Own
51
" Er, hello, Chewie," he said politely." Woof," the dog said back." Chewie is a Newfoundland," Beka explained. " They're great water dogs. They swim better than we do, and even have webbed feet. They're often used for water rescue, and the breed started out as working dogs for fishermen." " Uh-huh... Chewie - I guess you named him for Chewbacca in Star Wars. I can see why; they're both gigantic and furry." Beka giggled. " I never thought of that. Actually, Chewie is short for Chudo-Yudo. Also, he chews on stuff a lot, so it seemed fitting." " Chudo what?" Marcus said. The dog made a snuffling sound that might have been canine laughter." Chudo-Yudo," Beka repeated. " He's a character out of Russian fairy tales, the dragon that guards the Water of Life and Death. You never heard of him?" Marcus shook his head. " My father used to tell the occasional Irish folk tale when I was a kid, but I'm not familiar with Russian ones at all. Sorry." " Oh, don't be," she said cheerfully. " Most of them were pretty gory, and they hardly ever had happy endings." " Right." Marcus looked at the dog, who gazed alertly back with big brown eyes, as if trying to figure out if the former Marine was edible or not. " So, you named him after a mythical dragon from a depressing Russian story. Does anyone get eaten in that story, just out of curiosity?" Chewie sank down onto the floor with a put-upon sigh, and Beka shook her head at Marcus. " Don't be ridiculous. Of course people got eaten. But don't worry. Chewie hasn't taken a bite out of anyone in years. He's very mellow for a dragon. "
