Free The Crooked God Machine by Autumn Christian Page A

the aluminum and ash reared its head over me in a cloud. My classmates still trapped inside screamed, and then just as quickly, the screaming died.
    I discarded my cap and gown in a trashcan by the street and wandered around looking to see if anyone else came out of the building alive. I found the arsonist saint torching all the trees.
    “Did God tell you to do this?” I asked him, pressing my palms against my eyes to keep them from melting in the heat.
    “Fuck you, kid,” the saint said, and disappeared behind the burning building brandishing his flamethrower over his head.
    I continued searching for survivors outside of the building. Smoke cloyed in my throat. The heat and lack of oxygen made me dizzy. I called out for Jeanine but my voice sounded like a broken legged horse. I rounded the ruins of the school and found Ezekiel smoking a cigarette underneath a burning tree.
    “Congratulations,” he said when he saw me, “you’re still alive. Thank God for that, because you won’t be alive for much longer.”
    “Have you seen Jeanine?” I asked.
    “Who’s Jeanine?” he asked.
    The burnt tree limbs stretched overhead like Ezekiel’s halo. He tossed his cigarette into the burning tree behind him, spraying ash downwards.
    “Nice graduation, right?” he said, and walked off.
    I circled the collapsed building again, but I couldn’t fine Jeanine or any of Ezekiel’s girls. As I walked, calling out for Jeanine in my horse voice, the heat of the auditorium made my vision white and my feet stick to the sidewalk. I started to think that the smoke that roiled off the building were the angry feet of God. Black and defeating and crushing the ground underneath it couldn’t scream anymore.
    I went home.
    I stumbled into the living room with ash and oil scraping my face and smoking off my clothes. Momma and Sissy were sitting on the couch watching television. I dragged myself toward them, heels sunk low into the carpet.
    “The school auditorium burned down.” I said.
    “Get out of the way,” Sissy said, “you’re blocking the television.”
    Without another word I crawled up the stairs and got into bed. I pulled the bed covers over my head with the smoke emanating off of me in waves.
     
    ***
     
    That night Jeanine climbed through my bedroom window and crept into my bed. She smelled of smoke and burnt meat. She rubbed at her blackened face with the backs of her hands.
    “I thought you died,” I said.
    “Yeah?” she asked, and pulled her dress over her head.
    “Are you okay?” I asked.
    “Yeah,” she whispered. She pressed her dress against my mouth and slipped her hand into my pants. Her eyes were lazy, cloudy spots stuck to the ceiling. Her knees pooled and stuck to my sheets. She pulled off my pants. Wherever she touched me I burned.
    “Why can't you get it up?” she asked me.
    “I thought you died,” I repeated.
    “I'm not dead,” she said, “get it up.”
    “Are you all right, Jeanine?” I asked.
    She slumped down into the bed, her hair falling over her face in one smooth, black sheet. She continued to touch my penis with her scorched fingers. She slipped the fingers of her other hand inside my mouth and her fingers tasted of meat.
    “What's wrong?” I asked, spitting out her fingers. I pressed her close to me, touching our chins and noses together. My penis remained limp in her grasp until she released me.
    “I thought some things were untouchable, unable to be harmed, even after all this time. But nothing is. Not here. Not in this world.”
    “Are you talking about the fire?” I asked, “at Graduation?”
    She pulled away from me. She found her dress where she dropped it onto the floor and pulled it back over her head. She smoothed out her lion's hair, trailing streaks of meat, and looked out toward the window. The black moon waited over the trees in the blacker sky, the distant stars, glowing weak, the only light left on the entire planet.
    “Do you love me, Charles?” she