Kathy cringes, but the grandmother’s fingers are dug deep into the meat of her upper arm. The grandmother pulls her closer. Kathy can’t get away. She wants to run away, but she’s held tight, too tight.
“Baby whiners need diapers.”
The box hits the floor at Kathy’s feet. Adult-sized diapers, the packaging not even opened. She looks at the grandmother, not understanding.
“Your ass is too big for baby sizes, you baby whiner. But that’s what you need. A diaper for when you shit and piss yourself.”
“But I don’t —”
The hand that cracks across her cheek is hard and followed instantly by that same hand cupping the back of her neck, fingers tangling tight in Kathy’s hair to keep her from moving. This close, she can smell the coffee on the grandmother’s breath. She can count the flecks of white in her blue irises and see the gray roots coming in along the part in her hair.
“Put on the diaper. You’ll wear it to school today.”
“But I don’t want to! I’m not a baby! I’m in the fifth grade!”
The grandmother’s lip lifts, exposing her straight but yellowing teeth.
“Put it on! You’ll wear it, you little baby whiner, and you’ll fill it. Because that’s what baby whiners do, they sit in their own shit and piss and remember how grateful they should be to have clean clothes. And maybe the next time I tell you to bring your laundry downstairs, you’ll do it right away, and the next time I buy you something pretty to wear, you won’t be such a little piglet, such a fatty fatty and spill all over it, or bust the seams.”
The grandmother shoves Kathy to the floor so she can get one of the diapers. Kathy wants to tell the grandmother it’s not her fault the skirt tore. It was too small. The grandmother bought it in the wrong size. It’s never fit. She can’t help growing.
“Baby whiner,” the grandmother says in triumph. “Put on the diaper and tell me how it feels to piss yourself.”
The grannything’s fingers whispered along the front of Kathy’s shirt. No. Kelsey, she thought fiercely. My name is Kelsey now.
But she was done, used up. Nothing left. She couldn’t run to get away. She couldn’t punch or kick to defend herself.
The grannything grinned and smacked its lips. “Come give granny a kiss.”
Kelsey closed her eyes and braced herself for more pain.
Hot, putrid breath washed over her. She turned her face. Something slick and warm slid across her cheek, and she wanted to vomit but could only shudder.
Her eyes flew open at the sound of a loud crack. Despite the pain, she took a few stumbling steps back. The grannything disintegrated in front of her, the face sloughing off as its head split in half. The body crumpled to the pavement with a stomach-turning squelch, and lay still.
“Headshot,” said the man standing just beyond the car Kelsey’d taken. “It’s always got to be a headshot.”
41
The blonde woman went pale beneath her tan. Her eyes rolled up to the back of her head, showing the whites. Thank God she was already down, or she’d have fallen and maybe cracked her head open. She was already pretty messed up, by the look of things. Covered in dirt and blood, her hair lank and stringy.
She wasn’t quite naked, but she might as well have been, the way her breasts pushed out the front of her skimpy top and her skirt rode up to expose her taut, tanned thighs. Her dirty, bare and damaged feet were so small he could’ve easily fit one in his palm. She’d painted her toenails, and somehow that sight nearly broke Dennis’ heart. At some point, this woman had been pretty, had taken care of herself.
Well, he thought as he moved toward her and caught a whiff of his own rank scent, the past few weeks had been hard on everyone.
“Hey. Hey, miss.” He shook her gently, then hooked his arms beneath her sweaty armpits and dragged her about ten feet away from Mrs. Granger, who’d been his twelfth grade biology teacher.
The woman in his arms groaned, eyes opening. She struggled, fighting against him with panic clear in her eyes, and he let her go as nicely as he could without letting her thump to the pavement. He didn’t blame her for being scared. He probably looked like one of them. Hell. They all were one of “them” until that black ooze shot out of them. She could be one of them too.
“My name’s Dennis,” he said. “You’re okay. She’s dead.”
The blonde rolled onto her side to stare at Mrs. Granger’s corpse. With a small cry of pain when she pushed up on her wrist, she managed to get to her feet. She wasn’t too steady, though, wobbling and shaky, and Dennis reached out to grab her by the upper arm and keep her from falling.
She jerked away from him and almost went down again. This time, his grip wasn’t so soft. “Damn it, lady, you’re gonna hurt yourself worse. I’m not gonna do anything to you. Okay? And she’s dead, I shot her.”
The blonde’s mouth opened and closed. She shook herself but calmed in his grip until he judged she was steady enough to stand on her own. Then he let her go.
“She was dead before you shot her.”
“Probably,” Dennis said.
The woman closed her eyes, but not like she was going to pass out again. When she opened them, all traces of faintness had disappeared, though her brow creased with pain that also thinned her mouth. He saw she’d lifted one foot from the ground so just her toes touched. So she’d hurt her foot and her wrist. She was a mess.
“Thank you,” the woman said after a moment. “I guess you saved me.”
“Guess?” Dennis used the rifle to point toward Mrs. Granger’s body. “She’d have chewed off your face.”
“You knew her.”
Dennis paused. “Yeah. She taught me about mitosis and meiosis.”
And once she’d kept him after school, supposedly for detention because he hadn’t turned in several assignments in a row and had miserably failed on of her tests — the one that would’ve broken his grade point average enough to keep him from graduating. She’d given him a sandwich of white bread and bologna, the devil’s manna as his mother said, and tutored him for an hour before allowing him to make up the test. He squeaked by with a c-minus, but he did pass. And so far as Dennis could tell, the sandwich hadn’t actually been laced with tiny nanochips engineered by the government to interact with television signals and control his brain. It tasted good, and it filled his stomach, which felt constantly empty no matter how much organic flax seed casserole his mother force-fed him.
“Mrs. Granger was a good lady.”
The blonde’s mouth thinned further. “She’s not anymore.”
“It wasn’t her fault.”
“It’s not anyone’s fault,” the woman said. “It just is.”
Dennis could not argue with that, as bald and pessimistic a statement as it was. It sounded like something his mother would say, as a matter of fact, and that reminded him. “Mom.”
“Huh?”
“Sorry. I was on my way to stock up and head out to my mother’s place.” He gestured toward the Costclub he intended to raid. He stopped, studying her. His mother would hate a woman like this, all boobs and hair and big eyes and that tiny waist, those pretty little feet…She was saying something. “What?”
“My name’s Kelsey,” she said with what sounded like a lifetime’s patience, and waited until he dragged his eyes up from her painted toenails to her face. “What’s your name?”
“Dennis.”
She held out a hand, which he took. “Dennis. Thank you. I need to get some medicine and some bandages. And my wrist, I think it’s broken. Hopefully it’s just sprained, but if not, I’ll need you to help me set it.”
“Oh, sure, right.” She sounded so self-assured, nothing like the shaken woman of a few minutes before. Her eyes had gone a little glassy though, and she looked wobbly again even if she didn’t sound it. “Let’s get you inside, out of this heat. Get you a drink.”
“Oh, God. Yes, yes. Please.”
Dennis hesitated before putting his arm around her waist, his othe
r hand holding the gun out and away from them. This would be awkward. Kelsey didn’t seem to mind. She put her arm around him, her hip snug to his, and took a single, hopping step. He helped her that way for a few minutes before realizing it would take them an hour just to get to the front doors. He slung the gun over his shoulder and stopped to look down at her, that petite little thing.
“I’m gonna have to carry you.” He didn’t wait for her to protest, just scooped her up. She let out a squeak and clung to him, but damn if she wasn’t light as a feather pillow and just as soft. She smelled good too, at least not as bad as he did or anyone else he’d come across since this whole business had started. She smelled a little like sweat, a little like something light and floral. A whole lot like woman.
By the time he got to the front doors, he was sweating and not only from the heat. She’d curled herself up against him and laid her head on his chest, saying no more as he hefted her across the parking lot. The only sound she made was a soft noise of protest when he finally put her down just outside the big glass doors that were supposed to open automatically but didn’t because the power had gone off days ago.
She looked up at him. “Thanks.”
“It’s…it was…you’re welcome.” Dennis rapped the glass. “Stand back, I’m gonna have to break this.”
From his pocket he took the automobile emergency hammer with the special tip that broke safety glass. He didn’t think these doors were made of the same glass as windshields, but the hammer was better than a rock. The best tool for the job, Mom would say. He gave the glass a tap, watched it crack and shatter. Then he kicked out the spare pieces with his boot and held out a hand to keep her from moving closer.
“Let me carry you over.”
She didn’t even act surprised this time, just put up her arms to let him do it. He set her down a few feet inside the door, next to a metal bench. She sat at once with a grateful whimper that rose the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck. And other places.
“I cut my foot a while ago. It’s not healing right.” She looked up at him. “And I’ll need a splint and some bandages for my wrist. Some antibiotics. If you help me get into one of those scooters, I’ll be able to find what I need on my own.”
“Maybe we ought to stick together. I mean…for safety.”
Even without the banks of harsh white lights, the interior of the warehouse store was pretty well lit by the couple dozen skylights set into the roof. Dennis had no trouble seeing the glint in her eyes. Or her smile. The tilt of her head.
“Yes,” Kelsey said. “I think that would be great.”
“First, something to drink. Then your medicine and the bandages, they’ll be back by the pharmacy.” Right in front of them was a display of individual sized water bottles with a sign reading “BEAT THE HEAT.” They’d beat it, all right. He tore at the plastic and handed her a bottle, then cracked the top of one himself and drank half down without even taking a breath.
Kelsey was a little daintier, but she drank the entire bottle in almost the same amount of time. She gasped at the end, coughing, and Dennis was about to pound her on the back when she recovered. “More. Please.”
“You’ll make yourself sick.”
She raised a brow at him. “I’ll go slow, Dennis.”
Something in the way she said his name made him think of roses, velvet petals soft with dew, green stems bristling with thorns. He understood something about her then, maybe something she didn’t want him to know. Or that she didn’t know about herself. Kelsey was a rose, lovely and ornamental, but fully capable of defending herself from anyone who tried to cut her down.
He handed her another bottle of water and stepped back while she drank it. Her eyes never left his face while she took the first long sip. Then she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She let out a low burp and laughed, covering her mouth.
“Better out than in,” Dennis said.
“Better from the attic than the basement,” Kelsey added.
He burst into surprised laughter that rang throughout the otherwise quiet aisles, then shut himself up right quick. Just because it didn’t look like there was anyone here, that didn’t mean there wasn’t. Kelsey looked at him with a small smile.
“Let’s get you what you need.” Dennis brought over one of the motorized scooters, still holding a charge though he supposed it wouldn’t last much longer. He helped her onto it and showed her how to operate it.
She gave him another one of those smiles as they started off toward the back of the warehouse, heading for the pharmacy. “You know a lot about these.”
“Mom got heavy there after a while. She used one of these to get around the house.” He paused, thinking and not for the first time about how it had become ridiculous for his mother to spout off about keeping himself ready for any disaster when she couldn’t even get her bulk up and down the stairs without having to sit and huff and puff for half an hour after.
“Your mom. You’re going to her, you said?”
He nodded, thinking of the house on the outside of town. If there was any place left around here where he’d be safe, it was going to be there. At the very least, he needed to check on Mom. “We had a falling out. Umm…she kinda didn’t like that I moved out on my own. But still. I need to make sure she’s okay.”
“It’s been weeks,” Kelsey said quietly. “You haven’t checked on her before now?”
Dennis narrowed his eyes. “You don’t even know me.”
“I’m just asking.”
“For all you know, I could’ve just come from out of town,” he told her. “Maybe this is the first I’ve had the chance to get to her. Maybe I’ve been on the road this whole time.”
“Have you?”
He had it in his head to lie, but shook his head at the last minute. “No. But I’m sure she’s fine. If anyone in this town’s fine, it’ll be her.”
They’d reached the shadowy dark corner in front of the pharmacy, and Kelsey let her scooter roll to a stop. She twisted in the seat, which squeaked. “You sound so sure.”
“I’m sure. Let’s get your foot taken care of. And your wrist.”
The pharmacy had a roll-down metal screen, locked from the inside. There was a door, too, also locked. Dennis rattled the knob and cursed aloud for not thinking to check the customer service office first for any keys.
“Can’t you shoot it?” She sounded tired, her body sagging.
“That works in the movies and on TV,” Dennis said. “This is real life.”
“Right. Real life. Because real life is totally all about weird freaking storms and flowers that grow on dead bodies and bring them back to life —”
He interrupted her. “What?”
Kelsey gave a tired laugh. She sounded the sort of drunk that ended up with someone’s head in a toilet bowl. “Yeah. Flowers. Fucking flowers, can you believe it?”
“That’s what does it?”
From behind them came the stealthy slide of something against the concrete floor. Dennis whirled, pulling the gun over his shoulder but fumbling a little with aiming it. Kelsey laughed again, the sound thick and slurred. He waved a hand at her to shush, but she must not have heard what he had, because she kept going.
“Something does it, something gets inside them and kills them, or whatever, maybe they just die. But before they do…” She looked up at him. “They get really, really mean.”
Again, that noise. Something was moving, back there in the shadows, an aisle or two over. The sound was soft because it was sort of far away. Dennis shushed her, and Kelsey’s brows raised, but she went quiet. She pantomimed zipping her lips and tossing the key.
Dennis listened.
There it was again. A slow, shuffling scrape. An image came to him of something crawling, inching along by digging its fingers into the concrete and pulling. Crawling because it had no legs.
A shudder ran through him, but he took a deep breath to get rid of it as he aimed the shotgun. His finger slid over the trigger. He w
alked forward, but he couldn’t aim and walk at the same time, not without risking bumping into something or tripping. Kelsey followed him, her scooter whirring and covering up the noise.
“Stay here.”
“No way,” she said. “Not alone. You’re the guy with the gun, remember? I can’t even run away on my own, and this thing doesn’t roll fast enough.”
Dennis sighed. “Fine. But try to be more quiet.”
Kelsey said nothing, but the scooter still made too much noise. They rounded the corner and he swept the area with his aim. Nothing but a scattered pile of antacid medicines next to a few shelves of vitamin supplements. It wasn’t the first sign of destruction in here, he’d spotted a lot of stuff tossed around further back as soon as they came in. But it was a sign someone had been in here after the store officially closed, after there was anyone here to clean up the messes.
The noise had stopped, or he couldn’t hear it, even though he strained his ears. Dennis stood still. The gun aimed. He closed his eyes, giving up the benefit of sight to give his ears more of an edge.
Eight years old, in a tent in the backyard. It’s a campout. He’d like to have a friend there with him, that would make it a sleepover, but Denny doesn’t have any friends to ask. None whose mothers would allow them to sleep over at his house, anyway, much less in the back yard in a tent, right there on the edge of the woods where anything could lurk. And does, according to his mom.
Those other mothers are more afraid of that — what Denny’s mom says, rather than what might be in there. Lions, tigers, bears, oh my. The scorched earth circle his mom insists was left behind by something the government doesn’t want her to know about. She was talking about it at the drugstore today. Real loud. Everyone heard.
But Denny’s not scared to be out here in the back yard, even though it’s so dark he can’t hardly see a thing. No moon, no stars, no light. His mom’s gone to bed inside the house, or at least she turned out her light about an hour ago.
Denny has a flashlight, but he’s turned it off so he can go outside and look up at the sky. It’s just full of stuff up there, beyond the clouds and the darkness. Just out of sight. That’s what his mom says. There are things up there circling around the earth, keeping an eye on everything everyone does. Some of the things we put there, she says. We meaning the people like the president and stuff, not his mom, not Denny. Some of the stuff is just…up there.