“Yeah, they seemed pretty goddamn irritable.” He took his foot off the gas and the truck slowed, coasting. He rarely touched the brake, and the slow creeping speed was maddening. The houses had pulled together on either side now, they were back in town. “Sorry.”
Huh? “For what?”
“Ain’t right to cuss in front of a lady.”
“You think ladies don’t say fuck?” Or maybe I’m not a lady. God knows Mom despaired of me ever being quiet enough to qualify.
One corner of Lee’s mouth crept up slightly, hovered there. “That’s up to you, darlin. Way I was raised, a man don’t use that language in front of ’em.”
How chivalrous. An unwilling smile teased at Ginny’s own lips. She tried to banish it. “Am I still a lady if I swear?”
“You’ll be a lady to the end of your days, Miss Virginia, far as I’m concerned.” They rolled down a slight incline, Lee studying the road with that intent expression, as if he could see right through the snow-pack to the pavement underneath.
Well, isn’t that a relief. “Great.” She tried not to sound sarcastic. And probably failed.
For some reason that made his slight smile broader. It crinkled the corners of his eyes, tilting his lips ever so slightly. His hands on the wheel were sure and deft. And scraped-up, probably from broken glass.
So much blood on the carpet, and splatters of bone and gray matter. How communicable was this sickness? And what if he started getting feverish? What if she did?
Ginny looked away again, out the window. Sometimes her brain just worked too goddamn well.
Keep Him Company
Tip and Thurgood’s house was two blocks from their business, a small square blue tract number with carefully painted white trim, frosted just like a wedding cake. There were tire tracks heading into the garage, blurred but neatly lining up with Juju’s half. So someone had been up and around yesterday during the snowfall. “You gonna stay here?”
He could have guessed she didn’t want to.
“No way.” That same quick, nervous shake of her head as she undid her seatbelt. Wrapping her hair up in braids all the way around looked heavy, and it made her neck that much more slender and graceful. He’d never seen another woman do it up like that. Maybe she didn’t need a hat that way. “What if something’s in there?”
“Then you’re safer out here.” And she wouldn’t have to see him do…anything he might have to, if Billy or Juju had come down with the irritables and a foaming fever.
Behind her, the window was full of eerie gray stormlight. His nose said the snow wouldn’t begin again for a few hours, but he wanted to be home before then. It was a damn good thing he could navigate with his eyes closed round the Crossing. Concentrating on keeping the truck on the road was hard when he was also keeping an eye out for motion in the ditches or between the houses. And her, sitting on the other end of the bench seat, tapping at her knee or just breathing, was enough to distract the fuck out of him.
“Do you really think that?” She was already reaching for the door, a thin gold bracelet glimmering under the cuff of her jacket. In her own car, she could press a button and the lock flipped open, just like that. His wasn’t nearly so nice. “Or is your wife likely to be home?”
Oh, crap. “This ain’t my house. It’s Tip and Juju’s.”
“Who?” Her fingers played with the door release, running nervously along the silvery bar. Damn distracting, to see her touching things that way.
“You met them.” Guess it didn’t stick. “Martin’s. The garage.”
It only took her a moment or two. “Oh, yeah. Your boss.”
It shouldn’t have stung him, but it did, hard and sharp right in the throat. “He ain’t my boss.”
“You work for him, right?” A transparent look of bafflement, her shoulders up a little and her chin dipping forward. Did she mean Tip or Juju?
Her coat was fine for a ski lodge or going around town, but not for any serious traipsing. Those hiking boots, too. He’d have to find some real ones, small enough for her feet.
Lee shelved that on the to-do list. No use in crowding his head just yet. “Three days a week.” They need the help, and I need somethin’ to do. About to get busy with other things, though. Goddammit.
“Oh. Okay.” She pulled the catch, there was a burst of cold snow-fresh air, and she slid lithely out of the truck without even checking the mirror.
Son of a bitch. He bit back the words, untangling himself from his own belt and yanking the keys from the ignition. “Hey. Hey!”
She was halfway to Tip and Juju’s blue-painted door, and turned to look over her shoulder with a hesitant smile. A blush from the cold on those creamy cheeks, her wide dark eyes fringed with dark lashes, the honey in her hair showing up even through the gray light, the unconscious grace, all set against a snow-caked house and the thin, dangerous slice of the front door, just a little open.
Just slightly ajar.
It wasn’t just cold out here. It was flat-out freezing, because the black ice was all through him, fingernail to bone. He sprinted, almost slipping on the snowcrust before his weight sank through and his Army kickers dug hard, looking for pavement underneath. He grabbed her arm, yanking her back, and her feet almost slid out from under her. “Jesus, woman! You want to get killed?”
Her soft, half-swallowed cry of alarm fell into the deep well of a winter afternoon, and he was uncomfortably conscious of how quiet it was. There was no hum of traffic, and the snow on Tipton’s street only held only two sets of tracks—his truck, and Juju’s 4x4. Unless someone else had pulled into their garage, which wasn’t likely, but with the way things were going, he wanted to be sure.
“Ouch!” She regained her balance, shedding his grasp with a quick, violent shake. “What’s wrong with you?” Four hard, bullet-quick little words, but they lost all their punch halfway through, because the door moved.
Juju Thurgood, his cream-colored sweater and jeans spattered with drying blood, staggered out onto the porch in his sock feet, dark eyes ringed with white and close-cropped wooly hair stiff with sweat. His mouth worked a little, and he probably never knew how close he came to being ventilated, because Lee’s hand dropped to his side with blurring speed, arrested only by Ginny blundering back into him and Juju’s wild, high-pitched, barely coherent cry.
“BIIIIIIIIILLYYYYYYYYY!” he howled, and dropped to his knees. The entire porch shuddered, and the wind began to rise.
* * *
“He came home all beat up,” Juju repeated, hoarse and hollow, shivering even though Ginny draped the threadbare red plaid throw from the manky brown couch over his broad shoulders. “Told me he didn’t wanna talk about it.”
Lee, his arms folded, cleared his throat. The living room wasn’t that bad, but the smell, all to familiar by now, was drifting down from upstairs. Juju had laid Billy Tipton on his bed, crossing the man’s hands on his chest. A bib of dried foam poured down Tip’s front, and even though his black-haired head was crushed on one side, he looked curiously peaceful. Billy’s muttonchops bristled, the foam stiff among black strands.
“You think Andy had somethin to do with that?” The way things were tending, Lee’d be relieved if he only had to deal with Andy Bowe. Who was, all things considered, a coward, like any man who’d hit a woman.
“I dunno,” Juju husked. The way he hunched down, he looked almost as small as Ginny, who bit her lip and put her arm awkwardly around him. “He said she bit him, that was all. She bit me, she bit me.” He shuddered like a spent racehorse, his blunt-nailed, bloody hands working at each other. “Then he…” His head dipped further, and Ginny’s arm tightened.
She didn’t seem to care that Juju was all spattered with stink and blood. She sat right up against him on the couch, glancing nervously at Lee with a line between her eyebrows and that small worrying at her bottom lip. He wanted to tell her to turn loose, it was dangerous to get close to someone that might get it into his head to start foaming and twitching, but he co
uldn’t see a way to do it quiet-like.
“He fell on down like he been hit.” Juju shook his head, violently, his shoulder bumping Ginny’s chest. “I put him to bed. Woke up a little later an’ he was screamin. Then he started…growlin. And foamin at the mouth like the rabies.”
“God,” Ginny whispered, and outright hugged Juju. Soft arms, looking to console.
Lee braced himself. “He bite you?”
“What?” Juju blinked, peering up at him. “Bite me? Lee, for Godsake, I kilt him.”
“You din’t have much choice, if he was comin for you.” Lee kept his arms folded, though his hand itched for the gun, just in case. “It ain’t just him, Juju. Whole lotta crazy people foamin’ and bitin’ out there.”
“I tried to call the 911.” Juju shuddered again. “Line was busy. Figgered I’d get through and head out before…before the police come.”
Wise of him, considering Sheriff Blotzer and whatever deputy he’d sold a badge to that week were not big respecters of civil rights, so to speak. Lee’s sigh, heavy as Nonna Quartine’s had been once in a while when her husband had done something she considered foolish, surprised him. “They got other things to worry about, Juju. You did right.”
“I kilt him,” the man said again, and dropped his head into his bruised, battered hands.
“Did he bite you?” Lee didn’t like pushing the question. He liked the thought of what he’d have to do if Juju said yes even less. Ginny, her teeth driving harder into her lower lip, looked at Lee, and the comprehension in her clear dark eyes hit uncomfortably close.
“What? Naw.” But Juju’s chin jerked up a little. He was no dummy. “Jesus, Lee. You sayin’ that…”
“That’s what the news is saying.” Ginny squeezed his shoulders again. “It seems to be transmitted through bites. Which is kind of weird, because where did it start, then, and that’s a really inefficient way to spread. It can’t just be through—” She caught herself, looked down at her knees. “It’s not your fault, Mr Thurgood. You did what you had to.”
Juju shook his head, and maybe Lee would have tried to reassure him some more, but the overhead fixture flickered. Juju flinched, and Ginny made a soft soothing noise.
Well, goddammitall. “You better get cleaned up ’fore the power goes out. You can follow us in the four-by.” Shit if he didn’t just want to leave the man here, but…well, how would that look to Ginny? It should bother Lee to even consider leaving Juju with Tip’s body upstairs and God knew what crawling the streets.
Or it did bother him, but not as much as would be decent. That was what working in the sand and blood did, whittled at a man’s decency. If you had only the regular dose to begin with, or God forbid a skimpy one, it whittled down to just about nothin.
Juju nodded, but made no attempt to move. “He just fell down. Goddammit, Lee, what the blue fuck’s goin on?” He darted a look at Ginny, as if just noticing her presence. “Sorry, ma’am.” The wind rose outside, a low moaning scrape against the tract house’s corners.
“You guys.” A slight, pained smile got Ginny’s teeth out of her lower lip. “I guess it’s that Southern gentleman thing. Let’s get you cleaned up, all right?”
“Huh?” Juju, bemused, let her gently bully him to his sock feet. Man wasn’t even wearing shoes. There was even dried blood in his wooly hair, and a spatter of yellow foam-crust on his cheek. That was goddamn uncomfortable to look at.
“He apologizes for cussing in front of me, too.” She tipped her heavy-braided head at Lee, and steadied Juju as he rose, creakily.
“That’s ‘cause he’s been sweet on you for—”
Oh, hell no. “Juju, get cleaned up and get some shoes on.” Lee didn’t quite bark it, but he was close. Getting everyone moving before the true shape of the problem sank in was the best way to work this situation. “Ginny, why don’t you go on in the kitchen and fix him up some coffee? He likes it with sugar, boy’s got a sweet tooth. Imma make sure everything’s closed up good.”
“But…Tip…” Juju shuddered, and Ginny tightened the plaid throw across his broad shoulders.
“We can’t do anything for him now,” she said, practically enough. “Go take a shower and get some fresh clothes. Lee’s right. You should come with us.”
“Where y’all goin?” Some sense had come back into Juju’s gaze.
It was on the tip of his tongue to say it didn’t goddamn matter, but Ginny was pale, and Juju was shaky, and responsibility settled on Lee’s shoulders with an old, familiar galling. You never escaped it, once it wore its groove. “My place, but first we got to check on Horace. Get movin.”
* * *
“It doesn’t make sense,” Ginny repeated. “If it’s transmitted through the bites…it’s just so inefficient. It couldn’t spread that fast.”
Lee kept the truck from drifting. Behind them, the 4x4’s headlights stayed steady. Juju knew what he was doing, and driving might keep his mind off Billy Tipton’s body. The four-by had a winch too, which would help if disaster hit, and when they picked up Horace the old man could sit back there and talk Juju’s ear off. Better than Horace sitting in here, cozying up to Ginny and calling him Little Lee.
“The bites have to be secondary,” she decided. “God, I wish I could just check WebMD.”
“What’s that?” Damn, but she was smart. Lee was beginning to feel distinctly slow-going.
“A site hypochondriacs use to scare themselves, mostly. But I could cross-reference the symptoms and…” Her chatter trailed off, and when he dared to take his eyes off the road, she was too goddamn pale, her mouth set and her eyes shining brim-full.
He had to look where they were going, or they’d run right into a ditch and that would be embarrassing as shit. “Hey.” He couldn’t take a hand off the wheel either, that was a sure way to invite something bad to happen. “Oh, hey now, darlin’. It’s all right.”
She made a short, broken little sound, and Lee’s foot itched to come down on the brake. He could stop the truck and say something, maybe, but what?
“It’s not all right,” she managed, a little thickly. “It’s not ever going to be all right. People are dead.”
People die every day. That didn’t seem a helpful thing to say, so he searched for something else. And came up empty, of course.
Loose Rock Road split off here; he found it by touch, feathering the accelerator a bit. The chains gripped. Tomorrow, driving was going to be worse. Finally, he excavated something from the soup his brain felt like whenever he got a good lungful of that slight sweet perfume she wore. “We’re still kickin. I intend to keep it that way.”
Horace’s turn was coming up. They crept forward, and Juju was still steady on their tail, hanging back enough not to crowd. Lee drifted the truck into a sharp right, waiting for the little catch in the back that would tell him he was past the danger point. He was still waiting to feel that catch with her, and something told him it might be a long while before he did.
“I’m glad,” she said, finally, very quietly. “I don’t…I mean, I’d probably have…I don’t know. If not for you.”
It would have warmed him clear through if it hadn’t been the last thing he needed her thinking about right now. “Aw.” That was all he could manage, since the truck began to slide. He turned into it, realizing he was sweating under his shirt. God damn. The entire world had gone topsy. He had his hands full, and she said nothing else.
Maybe there was nothing to say.
He’d rarely been so glad to see Horace’s mailbox—a miniature, handmade red barn on a leaning post—or to feel the dip in the road that warned you to turn now, dammit, because the other side of the old man’s driveway was crumbling. The snow was a pristine blanket, broken by the hillocks of Horace’s chainsaw mushrooms grouped in combinations across his front yard. There was no use in living on a few acres if a man didn’t decorate, old Slipot believed, and some tourists even stopped to buy the damn things. They always wanted to buy the animals, too, but the old man wouldn
’t sell those.
They were to keep him company.
“What is that?” Ginny pointed.
“Bear,” Lee answered out of the side of his mouth, as the truck shuddered over washboard under snow. Slippery-slithering, they made it to the turnaround, and it was powerfully tempting to cut the engine, not bother with setting the brake, go straight into the old man’s kitchen, and open the cabinet where he kept some Wild Turkey.
“A bear?” Puzzled, Ginny leaned forward, gazing through the snow.
“Chainsaw bear.” His hands were only shaking a little. Christ, but this was exhausting.
“Chainsaw bear,” she repeated, dubiously. “Oh, of course.” And again, she popped the lock and was out of the truck before he could say boo.
“Don’t—” he began, but she was already out. What was that?
The sound drew nearer, a frantic barking. It should have been welcome, except Horace would never let Ol Bastard out for long in this weather, and it wasn’t the dog’s high-pitched greeting noise. Instead, it was a half-crazed sound of distress, and Ginny was walking right into it.
A bluetick coonhound burst around the corner of Horace’s trailer, eyes wide and white-ringed, snow flying and the noise reaching a higher pitch. Ol Bastard flat-out bayed, as if he was about to tree some poor beast, and galloped for the intruders on his slice of the earth’s pie.
Lee’s fingers had turned to wet sausages. He fumbled with his seatbelt and struggled out of the truck as Juju bumped to a stop behind him. Lee almost lost his footing, breaking through a crust of ice that boded no good, and Ginny’s sharp cry yanked him around the front of his truck, slipping and scrambling.
“Oh, aren’t you adorable!” She crouched, stray curls worked free of her braided hair and falling in her face, and Ol Bastard skidded to a stop, his yodeling yip-yawing into a hound’s characteristic tell-you-all-about-it. “You are, you’re beautiful! Look at you! Where’s your human, little fellow? Where’s your person? Did they leave you outside? That’s not very nice, is it?” Babytalking, a soothing stream of words, she reached out cautiously, and the bluetick slobbered over her fingers and threw himself at her for pats and pets, still yapping a mile a minute. “Oh, you’re soaked, you poor thing! Who’s left you outside, huh? Who’s done that?”