“Nice try,” the voice says.
I know he’s lying. He can wear all the disguises in the world, but he can’t shake the lisp. I can hear it crystal clear, just like that day. Still, I don’t provoke him. In fact, I don’t say anything for a moment. I cover the phone with my hand so I can take a few deep breaths and try to calm my racing heart. As I do, I watch the window for movement. Then I hastily look around the wide-open acreage, trying desperately to remember in which direction the closest house lies. I take a step to the right, considering running….
“Daisy?” the chilling voice addresses me again.
“Yes?” I ask hoarsely.
“Jesus is excellent at many things,” he says. “Sharpshooting is one of them.”
I freeze. There’s a pause: I think I hear the tap of a keyboard.
“There we go,” he says. “That’s better. Now sit back down on your pretty little blanket. I do want you to go in out of the sun and meet my friend, but not yet. Wait for my word, will you now, dear?”
“Yes,” I say, trapped.
“And stay on the phone with me,” God says. “I’m loving our little chat.”
I drop to my knees, then sit. I think of clicking over to Matt, screaming into the phone for help, but it’s been too long. There’s no way he’s still holding for me. He’s probably on his way to pick up his mom right now.
The fly that won’t go away buzzes close this time, and when I brush it away, the back of my hand makes contact. The fly is too big to be a fly.
I freeze again, for another reason.
I hear what I didn’t before: the hum in the background.
I look up, and there it is.
On a branch directly above me, I see it.
The hive.
“I have to move,” I say into the phone.
“What’s that?” God murmurs. It sounds like he’s preoccupied with something else.
“I said I can’t stay where I am,” I say. I’m not sure what he’s planning for me, but it might not be death. That’s more than I can say for the bees.
“Why not?” God asks curiously. “Just a moment.” I hear tapping, then nothing for a few seconds. I watch the silhouette appear in the window, then disappear again. A few seconds later, I hear two more taps, and then a small laugh.
“Oh my goodness,” God mutters to himself, amused. “That is too good. Ironic, if you think about it.”
“I’m moving, okay?” I say, standing slowly. “I’m walking toward the house. Tell your friend not to shoot me or anything.”
There’s a long, drawn-out pause. I can hear him breathing into the phone, through my ear and into the fear control panel in my brain.
“I told you to sit still.” His voice is humorless and frigid. Terrifying.
“I can’t,” I say. “The bees will sting me.”
“I assure you that worse will happen if you move,” God says.
In the end, I don’t debate it that long. Rationalizing that God would have instructed his lackey to shoot me in the beginning if he’d wanted me to die that way, I take a step.
Then I take another.
I hear tapping.
“Bad move,” God says. “What a colossal waste of Revive you were.”