The Missing Page 21

  Miller arched his brow. “You dumb fuck. My kid got lost in the woods four days ago. He’s missing. My wife hasn’t slept since.”

  Lou shook his head. “You’re protecting him. I saw him break open the hutch last night.” A tear rolled down his face. “I saw him doing this.” He pointed at the wet pile, “To the animals. I tried to stop him, but by the time I got there, they were all dead. It was your son, Miller. I wanted to give you the chance to mind this yourself before I went to the police.”

  Danny felt bad for his dad all of a sudden. Everybody on that stoop knew James was guilty. Down below, the rabbit husks didn’t bleed. They were wet, but not runny, like they’d been sucked dry. Looking at them made Danny woozy.

  “Mr. McGuffin,” Danny said. He was trying to find the words to explain, to apologize, but then Miller clamped his hand around Danny’s shoulder, tight as a vise.

  “My son is lost. Maybe murdered, or worse. And you show up at my door with this shit. You’re lucky I don’t shoot you dead.” The part that surprised Danny was that Miller sounded earnest, like he’d been up all night worried about James.

  “I saw him,” Lou said, but suddenly he was uncertain. A shred of doubt grew inside him. It was a truth most people didn’t know. If you’re loud and angry enough, the weak buy any story you’re selling. Especially when you believe the lie, too.

  Miller stuck his ample gut out like he was going to bowl Lou over with it. “For all I know you’re the one who has James, and the other missing kids, too. You never liked him. We all know that.”

  Danny found himself rooting for Lou, even while his dad’s grip tightened. He wanted Lou to yell right back. Lou didn’t say anything for a while, and Danny hoped he was gearing up for a real knock-down drag-out. But then his lip quivered, and he started blubbering. At first Danny was awed: His dad was like the fucking Almighty. And then he lowered his eyes, because a pile of rabbits were dead. “It was your son,” Lou whispered.

  “Get off my property before I kill you where you stand,” Miller countered. Lou held his ground for maybe three seconds. Then he turned tail. They watched from the doorway. Lou walked fast, with his head lowered, and then, after a few paces, he broke into a jog. He was a tall, thin man, and his faded khaki pants were too big. They swaddled his ass like a diaper, and Danny imagined the man’s life in a different light: a lonely schmuck who ate frozen low-carb dinners to stay trim, but couldn’t toss a ball or boss somebody at the office. He was weak, and Danny hated him for it, and he hated himself for thinking it because before this morning he’d always respected Lou McGuffin. The man was everything Miller Walker wasn’t: human.

  Once Lou was out of sight, Miller pointed at the carcasses. “Clean that up. Put it in a bag,” he said. “The whole deal. Scrape the blood off the cement, everything. Do it before I leave for work. Then come get me.”

  Danny shook his head. “Dad. The other night, when I saw James…I think Mr. McGuffin is right—”

  Miller cut him off. “Don’t tell me. I’ll tell you. Now clean this shit up before that pussy figures out he threw away the evidence.”

  Danny didn’t move. Miller grabbed his upper arm and yanked. “Your mother finds out about this, on top of James missing, and she’s right back in the loony bin. You know that. She can’t take much more. She’s already mumbling to herself. You want to be the one who sends her over the edge?”

  To his own surprise, Danny started crying, weak as Lou McGuffin.

  “I didn’t think so,” Miller said. “Now clean it up.”

  Danny got a plastic bag and scooped the bodies into it with a snow shovel. They didn’t make any sounds when they landed, not even a thud. Their silence was worse, somehow.

  Bleach worked best on the stoop, and he poured about half a gallon, then hosed it down so he didn’t have to get on his knees and scrape. He was done an hour later. His father was leaving for work, and his mother was still in bed. He hadn’t gone to school since Tuesday. First he’d stayed home to look after Felice, and then the school had closed because of the virus.

  His dad tossed him the keys to Felice’s Benz. “The dump. Bring the spade from the shed. Make it deep. Don’t let anybody see you.” Then he left, like that was all the explanation Danny needed. But that was the problem: Danny had never needed much explanation. He and Miller thought the same way. He’d already guessed that the dump was the best place for the bodies, since the woods were lousy with cops.

  Danny drove even though he didn’t have a license. It was a Saturday morning, so normally the dump would be full of dads unloading all their old crap, but because of the virus the streets were empty. He hoped that meant they’d left town or were home watching the news, because otherwise, a lot of people were sick. Dead, even.

  He found a wrecked car that he figured no one would want to move for a while and dug underneath it. He worked fast. The hole was about a foot deep. He thought about emptying the bunnies from the bag. They’d degrade faster, and it would look more natural if someone found them that way, but he didn’t want to see their bodies again. So he dropped everything in the hole, bag and all.

  He stopped at the hospital before he went home to tell his dad the deed was done. The lot was full of cars that looked like they hadn’t been moved for days. Most of the CDC had left for Washington, which Danny suspected was a bad sign. If they thought they could help without getting sick too, they’d still be here. They said they were working on a vaccine, but Danny doubted that part, too. If they’d found it, they’d be using it.

  State troopers patrolled the entrances to the hospital. Plastic walls and separate vents partitioned the east wing. He had to explain to three different pale-faced, coughing men who he was before one of them finally let him into the main office.

  The halls didn’t smell like ammonia. They stank like disease. From every direction Danny could hear people coughing; patients, doctors, nurses, soldiers. All of them were busting a lung. There wasn’t much staff. The floors were dirty with mud, and in some places, blood.

  He would have turned and gone home if his dad’s office hadn’t been so close. “Finished,” was all he said when he leaned in the doorway. Miller clapped him on the back, really hard, which was as close as the guy ever got to a hug. “Thanks, son. I knew you were a team player,” he said. Danny couldn’t help it, he was proud.

  “Are we safe here, Dad? Mom and me?” he asked. He tried to keep his voice from cracking. It wasn’t easy.

  Miller shrugged. “Safe from what?”

  “The virus. I heard more than half the high school is sick with it, or missing. Are they missing because they left town?”

  Miller waved his hand dismissively. “I was just on the phone with the shareholders. I told them the same thing I’m telling you. We don’t panic. That’s the thing. We panic, we lose our shirts. Right Danny?”

  “Right, Dad,” he said.

  Miller called the chief of police while Danny hovered near the door and listened. “I hate to think this, Tim,” he shot into the phone, “but it might have been an abduction. Lou McGuffin lives next door. He’s single, you know. He came to my house this morning babbling about James. He’s always been a little off, but this time I think it’s gone farther than that…”

  Danny didn’t want to listen anymore. He walked away, and his stomach filled with rocks. By the time he got home, three squad cars had beat him to McGuffin’s house. Not long after, Tim Carroll was leading Lou McGuffin down the walk in handcuffs. Danny watched from his window. Lou looked at him for a second, and Danny wanted to shout something, or wave, but he didn’t. Skinny Lou in his cheap khaki pants big as sails. Danny hated the sight of him so much, he closed his blinds.

  About an hour later, Danny’s friend John called. He didn’t answer the phone, but he listened to the message. “Hey, D-man!” John hooted, because John was an idiot. “You hear what happened? That guy that lives next door to you? Cops found kiddie porn on his computer. Plus, like, everybody we know is sick or missing—fucking awesome!
Dude! Call me now!”

  Danny didn’t call him. He didn’t want to believe it, but he knew it was true. His father had framed Lou McGuffin and paid off a cop to plant the porn, just so he could keep secret the fact that his kid was a psycho.

  Danny’s stomach churned. This was bad. But what could he do? People liked him for his dad’s money. He could drive without a license and drink beer in the woods. He never ran from the cops, because he’d never get arrested so long as his dad covered the bill. With the money Miller made, his mom would never be his burden, and neither would James.

  Yeah, that kiddie porn shit made all the sense in the world. Lou deserved it, for accusing James of something so bizarre. Seriously, James was psycho, but could any kid really eat a half-dozen grown rabbits? Maybe Lou McGuffin really was into toddlers. If he told the cops, his dad would fuck him. He’d never see it coming. Smiling, his dad would say: Proud of you son, you told the truth just like your mom and I taught you, and the next thing he knew he and Lou would have adjoining cells. Best to do nothing. Best to chase some tail and play a little more golf this fall, so long as he didn’t get the virus and lived to see next week. Better yet, he should have a beer. Or ten.

  So Danny went to the kitchen, and pulled out a Shipyard, and was feeling just fine until he opened it, and smelled what he thought was a future full of beer and bullshit. He dry-heaved in the kitchen sink.

  And now it was after midnight, and his room smelled like a stink bomb. Downstairs, he could smell cigarette smoke. After five years’ cold turkey, his mom was back in Marlboro country. His dad was shouting on the phone, because a lot of people were dead, and the public health commission wanted the bodies burned, but the lawyers wanted them stored in freezers, so instead nobody was doing anything. Eight different people had left messages on Danny’s cell phone over the last two days. His girlfriend Janice. His friends on the lacrosse team. They were talking about leaving town, and the people who’d gotten sick. They were talking about the stuff they’d seen during the night, and the rumors about half-eaten animals, like James wasn’t the only kid in town with a thing for vivisection.

  And now maybe his brother was dead, and Lou McGuffin was in the slammer, and he was jerking off while four whores talked about whether they’d have sex with a guy on the first date (apparently, if he buys you dinner, the answer is a resounding yes), and he started crying, because even though he’d showered, the dirt from the hole he’d dug was still crammed in his fingernails, and potato chip salt was burning his blisters. He was crying because his room was dark, and his mom’s Marlboros were wafting under his door, and instead of feeling sad, he felt mean. He wanted to punch a wall. He wanted to find his mom, and start yelling about how none of this would have happened if she wasn’t popping pills all the time. He wanted to hurt somebody weaker than him, just like good old dad.

  So he wiped his tears and decided. He wasn’t going to be like his dad. He’d go to the police station. He’d tell them about the rabbits. Maybe Miller would kick the shit out of him, or ship him to military school like he was always threatening. Either way, he’d finally be out of this house.

  He put on his coat and shoes and grabbed his mom’s keys. Tiptoed down the stairs. They wouldn’t notice he was leaving until they heard the car. By then he’d be gone. In the kitchen the radio was playing classical crap on low volume—Wagner. It smelled down here, almost as bad as the stink bomb in his room. He could hear the echo of his footsteps, which seemed wrong. Miller wasn’t yelling into the phone anymore. His mom wasn’t flipping through Being Your Own Best Friend.

  He knew he should go, but the silence was unnerving. He pressed open the door to the master dining room and peeked inside. A cigarette’s plume curled from an ashtray. He opened wider. An arm in a blue sweater dangled from a chair. It moved in slow circles. Mama, he thought, even though he hadn’t called her that since before the loony bin.

  He opened the door all the way. She was leaning back in the Louis XIV chair with her neck exposed, while on the wood floor below, blood pooled. As each drop fell, it splashed.

  His heart migrated from his chest and lodged in his esophagus. It kept beating, even though it was in the wrong place. Everything in his body was in the wrong place. His mom’s throat was missing, and as he watched, her head lolled. He remembered feeding Wonder bread to the ducks with her, and the way she used to cut his apples width-wise, so he could see their stars.

  Then the worst thing happened. Worse than he could ever have imagined. Her neck was mostly chewed up, and her head was tilted back. It began to loll. Only a little bit of bone was still holding it in place. The rest was gristle. The bone broke. It sounded like a knuckle cracking. Her head made a wet sound as it squashed against the carpet. Then it rolled in his direction. He thought maybe it was alive. It was trying to tell him something. It stopped only a few inches from his feet. Its mouth was open, and for a moment he thought it might speak.

  “Hhhh,” he wheezed, again and again: “Hhhh…Hhhh…Hhhh.” He covered his mouth with his hand, and hoped his dad wouldn’t hear. His dad had done this. His dad was a monster. And then he remembered his brother. James had done this…Or was it his dad?

  He started for the back door. Careful, so careful, not to trip on the thing on the floor. His heart was in his throat, beating fast.

  “Brother,” a voice said. The sound was cold, and wet, and wrong.

  Danny looked, and there was James, blocking the door. The kid’s eyes were completely black. His toes, impossibly, looked like they’d grown back since the other night. The new ones were pale and perfect. Not even crooked, like they used to be. The hair on his scalp, lashes, and eyebrows was gone. His pale skin was sagging, so he looked like James, only aged one hundred years.

  Danny hauled ass. He kicked the thing on the ground by accident, and it squashed as it rolled. Her eyes didn’t blink from one revolution to the next, and he wondered if it hurt her. His heart was in his mouth now. He was biting it as he ran.

  James lunged and grabbed his legs. He clung tight until they both fell. Danny turned onto his side, and suddenly James was on top of him. His skin smelled rotten, like it was falling off his bones, and Danny gagged.

  Overhead, he could see his mother’s headless body, arms still swinging, baaaack and foooorth, so slowly. “Dad!” Danny tried to shout, only it came out a whisper.

  “Dad!” James mimicked. “Daddy! Daddy!” he shouted. When no one answered, Danny understood that their father was dead. Absurdly he thought: The king is dead. Long live the king.

  James’s face contorted into something ugly and full of hate. A crippling, useless, idiot hate that burns so hot it devours itself before its flames can lick the object of its loathing. The kind of hate that spurs a kid to kill his own pet. James bared his teeth, and went for Danny’s throat.

  Danny kicked up his legs as hard as he could. James went flying. He crashed into the body in the chair. They toppled. Danny winced at the sight of Felice’s blue wool socks. There was a hole in one of them, and her big toe peeked through.

  He opened the breakfront, and grabbed a steak knife. He didn’t want to, but he pointed it at his kid brother. James got out from under Felice’s body. They squared off. James smacked his red lips. Danny tried not to make the connection, but his mind moved faster than he wanted. Blood. His little brother was wearing his parents’ blood.

  He did the worst thing he could imagine (I’m so sorry Mom and Dad and God and James). He drove the knife down in a low arc. It connected with James’s chest. He tried to pull it back out and stab again, but lost heart, and left it there. James staggered back, but he didn’t fall. With a howl, he pulled the knife from his ribcage. It clanged against the floor.

  James bared his teeth, but Danny could see now that he was frightened. He hadn’t expected this. “I’ll show you!” he said, and his voice wasn’t flat anymore. It was full of worry. “I’ll see you in the woods, Danny. I’ll see you there!” He was crying like they were kids again, and Danny had been t
easing him too hard.

  Weakened, he dropped to his knees and crawled out the back door. His blood trailed him like a shadow on the ground. Danny followed, and watched as James tore at the grass for purchase. He lumbered across the lawn.

  Danny leaned in the doorway. He wanted to scratch his nose, but his hands were bloody. He wanted to be inside, but his house was bloody. He watched his brother disappear into the dark, and he wanted to rescue him, to save this last member of his family, but he understood that for this disease, there was only one cure.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Wheel of Fortune

  This is where I live. Under a sign marked empty.

  This is where we part ways. When everything runs out.

  That feeling in your stomach. You do not imagine it.

  That feeling in your stomach is how you murder me.

  The thing formerly known as Lois Larkin clutched a piece of pink stationery. Scrawled across its thick grain was a poem she’d written. It was a poignant thing, and she knew it by heart. Had repeated the lines over and over, though she couldn’t remember what it meant. All she knew was that she was hungry.

  It was late Saturday night. She lay in a bed of her own filth and stink. The itch had returned. It crawled between the folds of her wrinkled skin, under her sagging breasts, and on the inside, too. Her organs, her dying muscles, her thickening bones; they felt like scabs that would never heal. She was changing. Her black hair was falling out in clumps. It wasn’t just daylight that made her squint; it was the bulb in the hall whose halo shone under her door, and the headlights of cars that passed on the street. She was becoming not Lois. So she squeezed the paper tight, and recited the poem like an incantation, trying to revive the woman she used to be.

  But she hated that milksop, didn’t she?

  The thing that lived inside her blinked. She felt it slither behind her eyes. Its wetness satisfied the itch. Sweet Lois, it crooned. Your father’s here with us. He says you can give up now. You tried your best. He’s so proud of you.