Cotton Crossing

  Lee grimaced slightly, yanking the coat even tighter around her. “Yeah, and whatever’s in there might be whatever they was shootin at down in the street, you think about that? I ain’t havin you hurt.”

  Bang. A long vertical splinter popped out of the door. Maybe Harry was in there doing some home renovation? Just a relaxing time with a sledgehammer on a Sunday evening.

  The things on the street. She’d been trying not to think about them and the way they moved, their jerky, unnatural speed.

  “Now go on inside,” Lee Quartine said. He seemed to think she would, because he let go of her and set off for the open garage door to their left. Going inside was a good idea, a flat-out great one, and Ginny wavered between retreating to her own house and following, clutching his huge but undeniably warm coat around her shoulders.

  Afterwards, she would think of that small vacillation and writhe with embarrassment. There was nothing as humiliating as finding out how much of a coward you really were.

  In the end, the decision was made for her, because the door disintegrated as it was hit again. A blur of wild, snarling motion crammed itself into the new hole, one hand—it had to be a hand, nothing else was shaped like that—gripping empty air and spattering dark fluid onto the steps.

  Hot terror boiling in her chest, Ginny bolted after Lee.

  Fixed to Hit Concrete

  Ginny ran into his back, and the next few seconds were confused as hell. A flash of annoyance—she should have done what he told her, did she think he just flapped his gums for fun?—died when Lee heard the snarling, and he shoved her past him and into the garage, moving back in a quick light shuffle and wondering what the hell was making that noise. It didn’t sound like any animal he’d ever—

  It galloped out into the front yard, kicking up bits of snow. Human-shaped, all right, but again, moving wrong. Looked like a heavyset man, in a Sunday best suit but no tie. Clots and splashes of dried blood poured from his foaming mouth, giving him a bib of gore. His balding head glowed in the dusk, and Lee’s shoulder hit one of the minivan’s side mirrors with a thunk.

  He swallowed a curse, and the man-thing paused, crouching, his head tilted just like an inquisitive dog’s. Ginny’s breath rasped behind him. “Oh God oh God,” she whispered, and probably didn’t even know she was saying it. Lee’s shoulder burned with pain, but he didn’t have time for that, because the man-thing turned its head back and forth, a quick, intelligent shake, and began to lope forward on all fours. Right for the garage, and Lee.

  And Ginny.

  Well, shit. No firewood in here, which meant no axe he could see. There was a toolchest though, up against the house, with a narrow space in front of it for standing. Lee stepped back, hoping to herd Ginny that direction. “Back up,” he snapped. “Back up.”

  Well, she did. She headed right for the door into the house and kept going. Lee grabbed the front passenger side door of the minivan and wrenched it open just in time. The thing, rising on its hindfeet now that it had a good head of steam, ran into metal and glass, and it was making that snarling noise. Yellowish foam splattered from its chewing, working mouth.

  Ginny let out a sharp, terrified cry. Lee snapped a glance back and saw, hanging on the pegboard right next to the door, something that would do.

  The thing ran into the minivan door again. Lee snatched the claw hammer from the pegboard and snapped another glance at Ginny, who had run into the jerry-built wooden stair in front of the door to the house, wide-eyed and paper pale. Her hair, wet and full of curls, was a river down her back, and she was lost inside his shearling, clutching at the coat with her soft slim hands.

  Even scared to death, she was beautiful.

  He gave the minivan door a kick, just to get the thing’s attention. It kept working forward, but the door had hit the side of the garage and stuck fast in drywall, and all the thing’s frantic motion just dug it in deeper. It lunged, its face smacking the rolled-up window with a wet splorch.

  “Harry,” Ginny said breathlessly, behind him. “Oh my God, Harry.”

  So this was the neighbor. Looked like he was having a hell of a day too. Drugs, maybe? Shit. Was that what the Army boys were chasing down? Lee decided it didn’t matter. He also decided this asshole didn’t look like he was going to settle down and be reasonable. That left the option Lee liked least, but was, ironically enough, best at.

  “Hey.” He pitched it louder than Ginny’s horrified repetition of the man’s name. “Yeah, you, you ugly sumbitch. Look at you.”

  It could have backed off and gone around the minivan. Instead, the thing froze, and its eyes—strangely filmed, turning gray and mooshy inside the sockets—rolled, blinking. It turned its head again, like a cat trying to pin down a mouse skritching. Ten to one it was the doorbell that had set it off. Anything else inside the neighbor-house was likely to be unpleasant. How many kids were in there?

  Worry about that in a bit. For right now, watch this thing, cause it looks like it’s thinkin’.

  “Yeah,” Lee said. “I’m talkin to you, asshole.”

  Whatever he was expecting, it wasn’t what the thing did. It dropped, barking its elbow against the side of the van with a hollow sound, and shimmied forward on its belly, its hands out and curved into claws, snake-quick, grabbing for Lee’s feet.

  He kicked it, just hard enough to stun, then dropped to one knee and brought the hammer down, hard and fast.

  Ginny cried out again, miserably. Bone crunched, blood spattered, and gray matter squirted. Lee hit it again, because those arms were still going. The hammer smacked right behind the thing’s ear, shattering bone, and the third time, he fixed to hit concrete floor, going all the way through.

  It stopped moving. He gave it another tap, just to make sure, and stopped, his sides heaving. His shoulder seized up, and he hoped he hadn’t pulled anything. He waited, but the twitching in its arms was just the nerves figuring out they were dead-for-real. Jesus Christ. Despite the cold, sweat gathered in his armpits. What the fuck?

  “Harry,” Ginny whispered behind him. “It’s…my God, it’s Harry.”

  Lee fought the urge to drop the hammer. You couldn’t let go of a weapon until all hostiles were accounted for. He did scrabble backward, crab-walking like a kid, until his back met Ginny’s knees. She was alive, he was alive, and the damn thing laying under the minivan’s door, illuminated faintly by the dome light, kept twitching. He licked his dry, burning lips, tasting saltsweat and dust. “You know him?” Of course she did, but giving her somethng to focus on was called for.

  “I…that’s my neighbor.”

  “Was,” Lee correctly dryly. “Was your neighbor. He on the drugs?”

  “What?” She was having a little trouble with this. What civilian wouldn’t?

  Thought I was done with killin’. Lee forced himself to breathe a little slower, and a little slower again. Dear God and sonny Jesus, I thought I was done. “Drugs, darlin. Is he on the drugs?”

  “I…I don’t…he’s married.” At least she wasn’t screaming. She sagged against the door to the house, and he sagged against her to keep her still.

  “Wellnow, I never did hear that stopped anyone.” He cleared his throat, felt the flinch that rippled through her. “You hurt?” Her knees pressed into his back, but he didn’t mind.

  A long pause. “N-no. I don’t think so. Are you?”

  Nice of her to ask. “Bumped my arm a bit. Think it’s fine.” Bet it’ll stiffen up by tomorrow, though. Get moving, Lee. Figure out the next step. He could smell the thing now; it was ripe. Death had a brassy odor all its own, but this was rot and a foul sewage exhalation. Probably the sphincters giving way. Life’s ending was more often than not soaked in shit.

  “Harry,” she repeated. “Oh, my God. He’s married. Kids.”

  Fuck. Lee nodded, though, slow and easy. The right side of his neck threatened to seize up. “All right.” Go over your options, Lee.

  “Police.” She got there quicker than he did. “We have to c-ca
ll the police.”

  “Pretty sure they gonna have other things on their mind, darlin.” Shit. That just slipped out. Well, he was in it now, he might as well keep going.

  “But we have to.” She sounded very sure. You sank to the level of your training indeed, and what was every good little girl trained to do? Call the cops.

  Who knew, Percy Blotzer or his deputy might even have some good advice for once. “Okay. I’ll take you back’n your place, you lock the doors and call ’em.”

  “But…” She struggled with this for a moment, her knees trembling. “You’re leaving?”

  What? “Hell no. Gonna check to see anyone livin’ in there.” Shit. Just cussed in front of her. “Sorry.”

  “Sorry?” She began to move. “For…Jesus Christ, for what?”

  “It ain’t right to cuss in front of a lady.”

  “Oh, my God.” She was definitely moving now. Her knees pushed businesslike at his shoulders, and he exhaled a bit. Time to get up, and get this sorted, Lee.

  * * *

  She wouldn’t go back to her house. “All I have is my cell. They have a land line. They’re my neighbors.” It was hard to tell which carried more weight for her. The minivan's other side was clear, but she also refused to go out the open garage door. She just shook her head, her wet hair swinging. It was longer than he’d thought, that heavy fall, and he could have smelled her shampoo if she’d let him get close enough.

  Oh, Jesus Christ. Lee took a hard grasp on his patience. It was probably best to keep her where he could see her, at least for his own peace of mind. “How many in there, then?”

  “Four.” She shook her head again, faster this time, as if whipping away water or a bad thought. He had her backed against the toolchest, since that way she didn’t have to see the corpse on the floor. “No. That’s Harry. So there’s only Amy, and the kids. Three.”

  “Here.” He reached for his coat, pausing when she flinched, and held the shoulders so she could slip her arms in. “Ma and two little ‘uns?”

  “They’re…teenagers. Not little.” Her pulse beat a frantic tattoo in her throat, and her pupils were dilating again. With the sun gone down and the wind up, it was getting colder. He needed to plug in the engine block heater on his truck.

  Ginny’s hands worked against each other, fingers knotting together and loosening only to clench up again. She was going to break them if she kept that up. At least she was in his coat, now, not just clutching at it to keep it straight.

  He could have taken her hands and calmed her down, but he probably had blood on him, and he still had the hammer. It was tacky-wet now, not dripping. “All right. It laid out like your place in there?” He also could have zipped and buttoned the shearling, but smearing crap from the hammer on it wasn’t a good idea.

  “Mirror image.” Her jaw quivered, whether from her teeth wanting to chatter or from shock he couldn’t tell. Two bright crimson quarter-drops stood out on her cheeks. “Yes. Exactly.”

  “All right.” He pretended to think it over, watching her face. The thin slice near her hairline had clotted up nicely, but she was so pale the bruise around it glared. She was all right, though, and moving fine. “Now you listen. You stay behind me. I tell you to freeze, you freeze. I tell you to get down, you hit the floor. You understand me?”

  A quick nod. Her gaze skittered away, across the minivan’s side. She could probably imagine what was on the other side, and it bothered him. She shouldn’t have to see that shit.

  “What did I just say?” Get her mind off that.

  “Stay b-behind you. Get down when you tell me. Freeze.” Another quick nod, tendrils of her hair drying out and springing up into curl, falling in her face. She was holding up damn well. A good little soldier.

  “Fine.” It wasn’t fine, he’d prefer her in her house all nice and safe while he cleared this, but unless he was going to pick up and carry her, that wasn’t gonna happen, and whatever was in this side of the duplex wasn’t getting any fresher.

  It was then he saw the crowbar, half-shoved under some boxes. Oh now, that looks useful. He tossed the hammer on the toolchest with a clatter, and she flinched again. He was already past her, working the length of metal out from under a box of The 700 Club VHS tapes. Looked like someone liked their Pat Robertson. That also snagged on something he’d heard earlier. “Huh. Where they church, you know?”

  “What?” Now she was staring at the hammer, and he shouldn't have left it there. Too late now.

  “Your neighbors.” Slow and easy. “Where do they church?”

  “I don’t know.” Very softly. “Oh. No, I do. A Baptist one, near Hatchie Ground. They kept inviting me, though.” Her voice caught. “I never did.”

  Half the folk at First Baptist didn’t show up today, Margie had said. First was on the road to Lewiston, not west toward Hatchie. That could have led Lee down some interesting mental paths, but he couldn't start straying at the moment. He hefted the crowbar experimentally, and pushed past Ginny again, bumping into her to get her eyes off that goddamn hammer. “Well, next week, if you want, I’ll take you wherever you go. Come on now.”

  First Aid

  It was a good thing she hadn’t eaten anything.

  The smell was monstrous. The kitchen was a shambles, the phone ripped off the wall, cupboards open and broken dishes scattered higgledy-piggledy. The attached dining room was curiously untouched, the china hutch against its wall squat and polished-gleaming just as usual.

  The living room looked like something had exploded, flatscreen TV starred with breakage and laundry flung everywhere, the big brown couch and Harry’s recliner torn to smithereens. Stuffing floated lazily on drafts from the heating vents, which were still going full-bore. The heat was whistling out the busted front door, and when Lee passed the thermostat in the hall between kitchen and living room he turned it all the way down. The heat pump clicked, probably grateful for the respite.

  This had to be a dream. She followed Lee’s broad back through the house, the patches on his leather vest shifting as muscle moved underneath them. When the heat pump wound down it was silent except for the wind mouthing the corners of the house, rattling the front door.

  And the smell. It was awful, deeper than spoiled meat or rotten eggs or a rancid bar bathroom from her college days, it was flat-out horrible, and deep instinctive revulsion turned her stomach into a knotted, writhing mass.

  Lee paused at the bottom of the stairs, shaking his stiffened hair out of his eyes. He pointed at the half-wall between the entryway and the living room with his left hand, the crowbar raised in his right. “You wanna stay right there, Ginny. Next to the door.”

  “Okay.” The urge to add Mother may I? trembled on the tip of her tongue, but she bit down against it. “Lee…”

  “Hm?” All his attention was up the stairs, and with his face set and intent, he was almost handsome. “You just stay right there. Anything other’n me comes down these stairs, you get on out the door and into your house, you hear me?”

  I hear you. The floating unreality of the situation hit her again. Nightmare. Hallucination, maybe? It would have to be a group hallucination, and she tried to think if she’d read about them. A fine time to wish she’d gone for a psych degree, or hadn’t washed out of med school just before graduation. Her father had been so disappointed. She was supposed to be a doctor. Nothing else would do for Isaac Mills’s firstborn. Flo was the miracle baby, after they told Mom she’d never get pregnant again. By then, though, the mantle of responsibility had been conferred, and there was no taking that shit back.

  I should have left earlier. I should have left right when Mom hung up. I should have known.

  Lee edged up the stairs, his back to the wall. One at a time, moving smoothly each step. He looked a lot different than the diffident, silent man who had checked out Westerns for six months. Never a word that whole time, until she’d seen him in Landy’s. Maybe people thought librarians, like teachers, were hung up in a closet when the day’s wo
rk was done; they weren’t actual people, just services? So maybe he had to see her outside the library before she was all right to talk to?

  This man was intent and almost graceful, moving like he knew exactly what he was doing. The same way he’d set about changing her flat tire, or getting everyone in the diner ready to move.

  And here she was, her teeth clenched so tightly they groaned a little, her entire body twitching. Jumping, like bits of pavement popcorning under bullets.

  I just wanted some coffee. And some snacks. Her hands gripped each other, tighter. Tighter.

  Lee spent a little while at the head of the stairs, looking around. The stairwell light wasn’t on, but there were stripes of golden electric glow from the bedrooms. A gout of fresh, snow-laden air gushed through the hole in the door, and she inhaled gratefully.

  It made the smell worse when she stepped away, though. “Lee?” Her whisper tiptoed up after him. All of a sudden, she didn’t want him to go around the corner and out of sight.

  “It’s all right,” he said, but he didn’t move. Cat-quiet, cat-still, he stood braced between two stairs, studying the upper level intently.

  She put her foot on the first step. Nothing about this is even remotely all right. Her tongue crept out, wet her dry, chapped lips.

  Lee’s shoulders set, a heavy invisible weight settling on them. “Two kids, right? Boys?”

  “Yes.” The banister was splintered halfway up. If she’d been home, she might have heard all this. Or had it happened while she was at work? She might have come home, cleaned up, hurried through packing, and all the time, dead bodies behind a thin partition of drywall and lumber and…

  Oh, God.

  She barely realized she was creeping up the stairs. There was a huge splotch of something dark on the right—the wall, shared with hers. The splotch gleamed, still wet, and the thought that she’d climbed up and down her own stairs while this…this…