“Ginny.” Slow and calm. “I don’t think you wanna see this.”
You’re right. I probably don’t. She kept climbing. They were just like her stairs. The carpet was more worn, because they’d lived here for years. How many times had she heard the boys galloping up and down, and rolled her eyes?
Well, they weren’t galloping anymore. She was able to see through the railing along the hall leading to the master bedroom. Her gorge rose, but she managed not to spew. She just gagged a little, a soft choked sound—
—echoed by another, a quiet hissing noise.
A tortured, indrawn breath.
* * *
Amy McCoy lay in the shattered remains of the master bedroom door, her back and buttocks a mess of blood and deep gouges. Pressed against the wall, Bart and Harry Junior lay tangled together, but Ginny could barely tell which was which, since their heads were…God. The soft sound was coming from Amy, her ribs twitching as they rose and fell at strange intervals—first long, then short, then short again, then long, random little breath-flutters.
“Oh my God,” Ginny whispered. “Is she…”
“Hold up.” Lee pushed her back against the shut-tight bathroom door. “This ain’t right. Just hang on a second.”
“But she’s alive! We have to…” She searched for the words. “First aid! We have to help her.”
Lee’s arm turned into a steel bar; he pushed her back again. “Ginny. There ain’t no first aid for that.”
“But she’s moving, she’s…” The words died in Ginny’s throat.
Amy’s breathing quickened. Short little puffs, a train going uphill. A creaking sound, a long gassy exhale, and the stench intensified. Shudders raced through the battered, bloody body. It wasn’t like a body on television, even in one of those “gritty” crime shows.
“Ginny.” Lee planted his left foot carefully, next to Bart’s limp, outstretched hand. At least, she thought it was Bart’s, it wore a red shirt she thought she’d seen him in once or twice. “You need to go back down those stairs. Now.”
“What are you going to do?” It was a stupid question, she could see his entire body tensing, the crowbar lifting. “Lee, you can’t, she’s still alive—”
Amy McCoy’s head lifted from the floor, its eyes wide and gray-filmed. Her jaw worked, her cheeks splotched and flecked with blood, and foam bubbled at the corners of her lips. There was a cracking, a creaking, and her arms reached forward, fingers curving down to dig into the carpet. The pressure made a soft, wet sound, soaked-in blood bubbling up, and Amy’s head wove from side to side, loosely and eerily, as she pulled herself forward.
Snap. Snap. Her jaws worked, her teeth clapping together hard. She coughed, spat blood and foam, and that same thick animal growl that had burst out of Harry rose from her chest.
Her legs…her legs were gone. Her thighs tapered to ragged, bloody points flecked with splintered bone, as if they’d been stuck in a giant electric pencil sharpener. The light in the bedroom was on, and it was pitiless, illuminating strings of gnawed muscle and nerve trailing behind Amy McCoy as she scrabbled down the carpeting towards Ginny and Lee.
Lee didn’t hesitate. He stepped close, but not too close, and brought the crowbar down.
An Operation
Billy Tipton had taken the 4x4 at Juju’s insistence, and it was parked around the corner from the ramshackle trailer. He told himself this wasn’t a foolish idea, it was just checking on her what with the strange news and all. He could play with the rugrats a bit, too—little Andy Jr and Samantha who had Lila’s eyes. They were good kids, and Lila swore Andy didn’t touch them. Just me, she would say, sadly, hugging herself, cupping her sharp elbows in her soft palms. Wistful like that, you could see the girl she’d been; she didn’t smile anymore like she used to in high school. Which was a good thing, the high voltage had nearly killed him then, and it might if she ever did again.
The snow was coming on hard, and he couldn’t stay for long. The paper Landy’s bag in his left hand was heavy; last time he’d ended up in Lewiston he’d blown a twenty on a bunch of gimcrack toys from a novelty shop. The kids would like that. As long as he kept it light and easy and about the kids, Lila wouldn’t say you shouldn’t.
He could beat Andy Bowe into the ground, he supposed. The Bowes were thick with the Blotzers, and Percy the sheriff was already a problem, what with his feelings about Juju. Who had never done a damn thing to the man, it baffled understanding. So much about the world did, really. You could make everything simple, but everyone clung to complicating things.
Tip knocked at the trailer’s door again, heard stealthy movement on the other side. Would she keep it closed up, because Andy was home soon? I ain’t scared of him, Tip kept telling her. The goddamn asshole might even straighten up if he thought Tip was going to give him a fist or two. The only thing some jackasses understood was force, and Tip was ready to give a little bit. Just not in front of Lila, for God’s sake. The last thing he needed was her getting afraid of him too.
The porch vibrated a little underfoot, unsteadily. Andy Bowe was no fixit man. If he’d just stay off the sauce, he might turn out to be something, and sometimes Billy wasn’t sure if he wanted that or if he wanted the asshole to wreck himself in a car accident and solve the whole problem—
The door unlocked, swung open a few degrees. Lila Bowe, glassy-eyed and flushed, looked out. Her hair hung limp and lank, still golden as it had been in high school, and her eyes were just as blue, though bloodshot now. “Billy?” she whispered, and his heart lodged right up in his throat while his fists ached.
A bruise spread over the right half of her face. A fresh one, and deep, her eye was swelling shut. She coughed, a little, and blinked at him.
Tip leaned forward. She tried to hold the door, but he was a lot heavier, and the snow was a good excuse for him to want to get inside. He was in before the smell hit him; the kitchen was a damp dark cave. It wasn’t much warmer than it was outside, and he set the bag on a counter tacky with ketchup stains. “Good Lord, it’s cold out there.” Bright and normal, like he hadn’t seen the bruise, like his hands weren’t aching to become fists.
“You shouldn’t…” Lila shut the door and leaned against it. The entire place was silent as the grave. Painfully thin, wrapped in a couple layers, she shivered and clutched at fabric high up on her chest, over her heart like it pained her. “My God, Billy, he’ll kill you too.”
It took him a second to catch up. Billy turned, his Army boots grinding in something gritty on the kitchen floor, and stared at her.
Lila clutched at her left arm, a sloppy, clumsy wad of gauze with a maroon rosette in its center glaring against the torn sleeve of her yellow sweater. Her leggings—flowered blue ones he’d seen before—were dirty, which was unlike her, and sagging at the knees, dark with some unidentifiable liquid. Her tennis shoes were filthy with gravel, and her socks were mismatched—one red, one yellow as her sweater, again unlike her. The trailer was full of cold fresh air, and now he saw why—the sliding glass door in the living room, heading out to the unfinished deck, looked like a bomb had hit it.
And it was quiet. Too quiet, because by now the kids should be chattering at him and calling him UncleBillywillyouplease and jumping up and down, and too loud at the same time because the wind moaned through the shattered door.
Lila’s cheeks were ruby, even the bruised one, and her stare too glassy. Her swelling eye glared at him, and Billy Tipton planted his feet, reaching for his hat to take it off now that he was inside. “Where are the kids, Lila?”
She shuddered, her hair moving solidly, ratty and unkempt. She was normally so neat and clean, and did her best to keep the trailer scrubbed. “Got sick. So did he.” She shivered a little. “All sick, and…they’re with him now, Billy. It’s better that way.”
He frankly stared. This wasn’t like her, not at all. I’d die before I let him touch the kids, she swore each time. It’s all I got left, Tip.
He was about to ask her again w
here the kids had gone, but her gaze sharpened for a single, terrible instant. Then, she threw her head back and screamed, a long piercing cry not unlike a cheerleader at a big game, but with a raw undertone of loss and grinding, her throat swelling. Her knees gave, and he lunged to catch her before she went down all the way. She convulsed, her hands flying wildly, and clipped him a good one on the shoulder, hysterical strength her scrawny arms shouldn’t have had.
Billy bent over her, trying to keep the seizure, or whatever it was, from cracking her head against the floor. Little birdlike bones, and it was the closest he’d ever gotten to her. Through the dirt and the smell of violet-thick sickness, there was the scent of her shampoo—Prell, though he didn’t know it—and his entire body surged with the thought that he was gonna get her to the hospital, that he was gonna be the hero he’d always known she needed but didn’t see. A lifetime of waiting, of thinking of her in the middle of Afghanistan and later, in Iraq with the dust and the heat and the little pops that were the snipers, if you heard it they didn’t get you, but he was already got.
He’d been got ever since junior high and an afternoon in the park, sitting on the grass and watching Lila and her popular bubblegum friends laugh and loll, tinged with the gold of rightness. Her short Cotton Crossing High cheerleader’s skirt, her smooth tanned legs, and the kindness in her china-blue eyes.
That was what he was thinking about when she made a strange, grind-rattling noise in her chest, and her teeth sank into the space between his neck and shoulder, her nose nuzzled in tight and unerring where his buttondown was loose and his jacket unzipped.
Billy let out a short bark of pain, his hands biting and slipping. She was burning up, writhing in his arms, and he toppled over her, hot copper spurting as she worried at his flesh like a terrier. Trained instinct took over, because she rippled and bucked against the floor, and there was a sickening crack as she strained against his hold. He was trying to pin her, but his knee sank deep in her belly and her teeth slipped free as she bawled, a low inhuman noise.
“Lila,” he screamed, his knee slipping and his left hand clamping shut around her thin biceps, getting her arm overhead. “Lila stop it, it’s me it’s Billy stop it!”
The floor heaved, and she just wouldn’t quit. They rolled, a confusion of arms and legs on a filthy floor, knocking aside two empty pizza boxes and a half-full two liter of Shasta orange pop, and her teeth champed as she tried to get them near his throat. The horrible sound grated up from her chest, and her hair was vines of sickness, stiff and matted.
Red unconsciousness descended. It was the goddamn war all over again, only they didn’t call it war. They called it an operation, like cutting out a cancer, but it spread and spread, and there was no end to the blood.
Another crack, like a good dry seasoned piece of firewood on the block, the axe brought down cleanly.
Billy Tipton, blood soaking into the shoulder of his coat, lay on the dirty floor and cradled Lila Bowe’s slack, head-lolling body.
The wind picked up, and snow blew into the trailer.
Past Polite
Hot water beat against Lee’s back, slid down long-healed scars, worked at the bruise beginning on the back of his right shoulder. It felt good, and he would have liked it to last.
I was done with killin, goddammit.
He could have stayed there until the water ran cold, but he was worried about Ginny.
The towels she’d used were still damp. Her shower, her towels, he was brushing against things that had touched her. He scrubbed all over himself, trying not to be distracted by that particular thought. Instead, he had to figure out a whole list of other things, first among them how he was going to deal with the pile of shit that had just landed on both of them and showed every indication of getting deeper by the minute.
At least his skivvies and undershirt were still clean. His jeans weren’t too bad. He’d closed up the house next door as best he could, for no other reason than the dead air inside would help insulate her half of the duplex. While he was at it, he’d went knocking on doors. The two other duplexes in her cul-de-sac were closed up tight, no porch lights on, no sign of movement inside. The curtains and blinds were open, but Lee didn’t want to go peering in their windows. It was a good way to get shot, or if there were more of those…things, glass wouldn’t hold them back for long.
So he’d simply trudged back through the falling snow and shook his head when Ginny asked if anyone, anyone was home. If they are, they ain’t answerin, he told her, and the immediate leap of fear in her dark eyes socked him right in the gut.
She didn’t have an extension cord long enough. He had a waterproof one in the truck, neatly coiled, so his engine block heater was doing its job, the cord slid under her garage door. He’d checked all her windows and doors, pulled the curtains, and left her in the bright kitchen, hugging herself and staring at the pictures held to the fridge with blown-glass magnets—an elderly couple, the man with a stubborn curl to his salt-and-pepper hair and the woman with wide dark eyes that matched Ginny’s, both hovering protectively over a young woman with a sleek chestnut mane and the same sweet curved shape to her mouth as Ginny.
Family. Her kin.
Lee threaded his belt through the holster, laced himself back into his boots, checked the Beretta M-9 and slid it home. Ran his fingers back through his wet hair, too long for the military, and worked his shoulder a little bit. Just a helluva bruise, he hadn’t pulled anything. Should have iced it. Too late now, just gonna have to deal. Story of his life.
Ginny was right where he’d left her, in the kitchen. Only now, she was at the stove, stirring a pot of something. She had a frying pan out, too, and the good smell of butter and bread under heat rode the warm air.
“I can’t get through.” She didn’t turn around. Her hair was drying, a cloud of curls she probably cursed at every time it tangled. It made a man’s fingers itch, really, seeing it down like that.
“Say what?” He checked the hallway. Her front door was locked tight, everything in here was just fine. All the trouble was outside, but his nerves weren’t quite convinced.
“I keep calling 911, but I can’t get through.” Her cell phone lay on the counter, a sleek black rectangle with a shiny raspberry-colored case. It looked expensive and finished to a high gloss, just like her. “Just a busy signal.”
“Prolly a lot goin on out there.” He kept moving, impelled. Her shoulders hunched; she looked much smaller than usual. Or maybe it was that she was in sock feet instead of heels, the grey sweatshirt proclaiming YALE across her narrow back. It was too big for her, man-sized, and she kept pushing the sleeves up as she stared down into the frying pan.
His mouth was watering, but whether it was from missing his lunch or the fact that he was so close to her, he couldn’t tell. He wanted to ask whose sweatshirt it was, decided not to.
Two sandwiches. Golden-brown, perfect crusts. Looked like she made a mean grilled cheese. The pot to her left held a thick red—tomato soup. She sniffed. Wiped at her face with her free hand. “It’s not ringing anymore.”
“What?” Close enough to feel her heat. Close enough to smell her hair. Her shampoo smelled like oranges, but it was different on her than it was in the bottle.
“My parents. I’ve tried calling everyone I ever knew. Even Bobbie.”
Bobby? Was it his shirt? “Who’s he?”
“She. My boss.” The last word broke halfway too, and she flicked off the burner with a quick, vicious motion.
Oh. Now he felt like an idiot, but the hot sharp poke in his guts was a spur to a maddened horse. “She live in town?”
“Lewiston.” She sniffled again. “Get a bowl, will you?” She pointed at a cabinet. “Or two, I guess. Though I don’t feel much like eating.”
“All right.” He didn’t want to move away. What he wanted to do was take the last step and put his arms around her, and tell her it’s all right, it’s gonna be all right.
That was most likely a lie. He didn’t
like the way his thoughts on the situation were tending. Sure, her neighbor could have had a drug-fueled psychotic break and caused all that damage, but the wife upstairs with her legs missing should not have been able to belly forward like that. And the things on the street, moving just the same as the man next door, with jerky, uncanny speed…
Not to mention Grandon’s visit, the roadblocks, the news from both East and West coasts. If it was terrorists, they were doing a damn fine job of it. And he’d been just sitting on his ass. Not that there was anything a single man could do when the entire world decided to go tits-up.
What could he do? Just wait for everything to right itself or settle into the new shit same as the old, the way he’d been waiting all his life.
There were funny green flecks in the cheese. “It’s Havarti,” she told him. “With dill.” A fancy cheese, for a fancy girl from New York. He didn’t even know what he was doing here.
Oh, yes you do, Lee. You know exactly what you’re doin.
So he set his jaw and tried it, while she picked at hers and the wind howled outside.
It actually wasn’t half bad.
* * *
The next morning dawned softly, filtered through falling snow. It hadn’t frozen, it was just dumping about a foot and a half of sound-killing flakes onto Cotton Crossing. Lee woke up in what Ginny called her spare bedroom, his shoulder a bar of pain and his head full of bad noise. It took a few seconds, staring at the white popcorn ceiling, to figure out where the hell he was and whether he had to be ready for patrol. Sprawled on a folded-down futon, above sheets that smelled of brand name fabric softener, breathing in the smell of a room kept closed up for long periods of time, he heard dim sounds filtering from downstairs.
Voices.
That brought him upright, curling up to sitting, thrusting his legs from beneath the single blanket he’d used on top of the comforter because he’d slept with his boots on. Grabbing his shirt and his belt, he considered leaving the gun behind for a moment, but then the sounds downstairs rose in pitch. Whoever he was, he sounded angry.