The Missing Page 27

  Then the back window rolled down and Danny stopped. An automatic was pointed in his direction. “Turn around immediately!” the soldier shouted.

  Danny put the car in reverse, but apparently, that wasn’t good enough. “Pop-pop-pop!” The sound rang in his ears. He pushed down on the gas and drove backward until he spun off the ramp, and was back on Micmac Street. His rearview mirror was gone, and it took his a second before he realized that it had been shot off. They hadn’t been shooting into the air; they’d been shooting at him!

  The only other way out was through Bedford. He turned onto the road, unnamed, that had bridged the two towns since they’d been built. There were soldiers here, too. He stopped near where their truck was parked and rolled down his window. Two men in green slickers holding machine guns walked toward him, and in his mind he said a silent prayer that consisted of two words: Don’t shoot. The man looked into his eyes and then, without speaking, waved him along.

  He sped down the road. Thick trees surrounded him on the left and the right. I’ll see you in the woods, James had said. Was he still out there? Was that where the rest of them were hiding, too? He entered the empty town of Bedford. In his mind’s eye, he saw his parents’ ghosts, too. They stood on the corners, shaking their heads at all the things he’d done wrong.

  Bedford’s Main Street was empty. Shop windows were broken. It looked a lot like Corpus Christi, and he suddenly got the idea that from now on no matter where he went, everything would look like Corpus Christi. The whole world was haunted now. The dead, the infected, the living, they all shared the same real estate.

  Danny wiped his eyes and sniffled. His parents’ ghosts were watching him. His innocent brother (but had he ever really been innocent?) was dead, too. In his place a monster had risen.

  There was only one way to make the ghosts quiet, and there was only one cure for his little brother.

  I’ll see you in the woods.

  He pulled off Main Street, and parked at the picnic area near the woods. It was getting late. Four o’clock. The days were shorter, and sunset wasn’t far off. He took a deep breath, touched the gun in his pocket, and went hunting.

  The deeper he walked, the more the cord of adrenaline inside him unwound. He was tired, not from walking, but from shaking, from being ready to run for so long now that the blood rushing through his veins at twice its normal speed felt natural.

  The sun got lower in the sky. Everywhere were fallen trees. His instincts told him to turn around, but he couldn’t leave his brother. Not again. The boy was all alone, and for once Danny would do right by him.

  After a bit, the trail opened up into a clearing. Dead animals surrounded the periphery. He could make out the empty pelts of rabbits, deer, and even the mammoth antlers of a moose. He dry-heaved only once before stepping over their bodies and heading for the center. He was high with his own adrenaline. He’d been mainlining it for so long that he could have run a marathon.

  He bent down and touched the ground. It was black and cold and wet. He got to the center of the clearing. From a distance they looked like a single clump, and as he closed in he saw that there were hundreds, maybe thousands, of them heaped atop one another. They stank like garbage.

  It hit him suddenly, and the cord of terror sprang upright in his belly and twisted. It filled the empty spaces inside him. He was shaking. Not just his hands: his whole body. His mother, Miller, Lou McGuffin, the doctor in the hospital; they were dead. Hundreds. Thousands. Maybe millions. Dead.

  Some of the bodies faced the dirt, as if even in dreams they were trying to lick the blood from the soil. He made a fist and squeezed three knuckles into his mouth. He pushed his hand in so hard his teeth hurt, and that helped a little. It gave him the strength to come closer.

  He walked on tiptoe. He had to piss all of a sudden but he didn’t want to unzip his pants in front of these things. He didn’t have control anyway. He let loose and his jeans got hot: This was the nest.

  In the center of the bodies lay his old teacher Lois Larkin. Her hair was gone now, and she didn’t look the same. All her soft edges had become angles. The rest of the bodies were pointed toward her, like they were protecting her. She was the leader, of course. As Miller Walker’s son, he knew a leader when he saw one.

  He was drawn to her. He wanted to protect her, too. An eye opened in his mind, and he felt it watching him. He walked toward the Lois thing. He thought maybe he’d lie down next to her and wait for dark.

  That’s right, Danny, she whispered sweetly. I’ll take care of you.

  As he climbed the pile of bodies, he tripped over someone’s waist. It was Ryan Simpson, the cop who’d once tried to bust him for driving underage. The gun in his belt fired and he jumped. The bullet shot straight down through the edge of his shoe and into Ryan’s head. He was bleeding (his little toe, maybe?), but only a little. He was afraid the scent of blood would wake them up. It would make them hungry. The gun was so hot it burned his hip, but he didn’t bother to move it. Instead he stuck his hand into his mouth. All four knuckles. He bit down as hard as he could. That helped a little, but not much.

  His mom, his dad, Lou McGuffin, Dr. Rossoff at the hospital who had begged for mercy. They were all dead. But maybe they were lucky.

  OPEN YOUR MOUTH WIDE, DANNY, she commanded, only her voice wasn’t feminine anymore. PULL THE TRIGGER.

  Danny backed away. “No,” he mumbled through his knuckle sandwich. He sucked on his fingers in there, and that felt good. He wanted to swallow himself a little. That way he could hide inside his own stomach.

  PULL THE TRIGGER! she hollered, and her voice was hoarse wheezing, loud and legion.

  “No,” he said, even though he knew it would win if he talked to it, just like Miller. Never argue with a madman.

  The thing’s eye blinked in his mind, and then everything started to itch. His ears, his skin, his blood. He itched in the places he couldn’t reach. He tried to reach them anyway. He took his hand out of his mouth and scratched inside his ears so hard they hurt. He was crying again, but this time he didn’t talk. He backed away.

  That’s when he spotted the boy. A hairless cherub folded inside Lois Larkin’s arms. He looked peaceful. He looked innocent, like all the problems inside his broken brain had been cured. He looked happy.

  Danny felt the gun on his hip. He crouched down on top of bodies. He reminded himself of Miller’s head on a post (The king is dead—long live the king!), and Felice’s open-eyed terror, and the rabbits that had once been white. He had to do this. He owed it to the memory of the boy James had once been to do this. His parents’ spirits would never rest unless he did this. He crawled across the bodies. He lifted the gun. The insides of his ears itched so bad he wanted to tear them off.

  PUT THE BULLET IN YOUR CHEST, DANNY BOY. YOU DESERVE A LONG REST. The thing shouted so loud that his head swelled.

  Breathing through his mouth so he wouldn’t have to smell them, he climbed over their arms, legs, and swollen necks. The half-formed ones made cracking sounds as their brittle bones broke. They were like snakes, shedding their skin. Changing…into what?

  He stopped only once to vomit. But even vomiting here, on these things, made him feel vulnerable. They’re wood, he told himself. Soft kindling. The thing interrupted him: WHEN THEY TOOK HER TO THE LOONY BIN SHE SAW YOU WAVING. SHE KNEW IT WAS YOU, BUT SHE DIDN’T WANT TO BE YOUR MOTHER ANYMORE.

  “Stop,” Danny whispered as he bent over his brother’s body. He didn’t want to look at it, but he had to. He pulled James’s ice cold hand free from Lois’s flat breast, and rolled him on his back. The bodies (wood!) he was kneeling on weren’t stable, and he tumbled a little, and scrambled to regain his balance.

  James’s brows were gone. In their place was transparent skin and thickened bones. His wounded shoulder had healed now, good as new.

  “You’re not my brother,” Danny whispered as he pointed the gun against James’s temple, so this time he didn’t miss. Yes, he decided, his real brother was a swe
et kid. Misunderstood, but sweet. The kind of kid who’d turn out fine, once somebody bothered to give him a little attention. The trigger was half-cocked when the thing screamed at him: TRY IT BOY, AND I’LL STRING YOUR ENTRAILS ACROSS YOUR CAR LIKE CHRISTMAS LIGHTS. I’LL LET YOUR BROTHER EAT YOUR SWEET MEATS.

  Danny was leaning on top of Lois Larkin’s shoulder. It cracked. Broke maybe. Then he giggled, which he knew meant he was losing his wits.

  I’LL WRITE THE CORPUS CHRISTI WELCOME SIGN WITH YOUR BLOOD.

  Danny stopped. He didn’t notice the itching. He didn’t care about the pile of bodies he’d scrambled atop. He was pissed off. Pissed off enough to wonder: If you kill the leader, do the rest get set free?

  Danny redirected the gun, and aimed it at Lois Larkin’s face.

  His chest convulsed. He was crying and giggling at the same time. The thing’s eyes opened inside him, and showed him all it had done. The civilizations it had toppled. The hunger it engendered, that fed on itself without end, until the infected were engorged like fatted ticks, and the survivors watched their skin turn to bones. In the end they all died, because there was nothing left to consume.

  Danny was laughing. He couldn’t help it. He turned the gun on himself. Lou McGuffin. He was tougher than Lou McGuffin. He’d show his mom how tough he could be. Fuck the toothbrush to the heart. He’d shoot himself in the head! He was still laughing. He couldn’t stop. He laughed so hard he forgot to breathe through his mouth. He smelled the rot. After a while, he stopped laughing.

  He backed away. One knee after the next, over soft wood, until he was with James again. He didn’t think about it this time. He pointed and pulled the trigger once, twice, three times. It happened so fast he didn’t see the bullets slash through his brother’s chest. Only saw the boy ricochet, like he’d been punched.

  Mom and Dad and God and James forgive me, he prayed silently as his bowels let go with a long gasp of air. James opened his eyes and snarled, and Danny knew the lie he’d told himself. Virus or no virus, his brother hated him. He’d always hated him. Danny’s heart broke a little bit, knowing that.

  “It said I would be your king, and you would be the fool. It would make you a half-wit, like I used to be,” James whispered, and Danny shook his head. As Miller’s son, shouldn’t he have guessed that such a promise was a lie?

  Then James closed his eyes. Danny felt his wrist. His pulse slowed, and then stopped. They didn’t open again. Danny lifted him up and carried him away from the rest of the bodies. The wet ground was just soft enough. With his hands he dug a shallow grave. He buried his brother inside it.

  By the time he was done, the sun was low, and he knew he’d have to go back to Corpus Christi tonight. He’d find shelter, and leave tomorrow with a full day of sunlight behind him. He looked once more at Lois Larkin. His gun had two bullets left. He could tell the army people what he’d found, but he didn’t think they’d listen. He was alone out here.

  He pointed the gun and aimed it at her head. He shot once. Missed. Again. Missed. Again, only this time, the chamber was empty. In his mind, Lois Larkin let out a deafening scream, just as the sun fell down below the horizon, and the bodies began to shiver.

  He ran. Like a track star, feet pumping high as his ass, he raced to his car. If he survived the night, he would leave Corpus Christi. There was nothing left for him here. There never had been.

  THIRTY

  From Death, Life

  The last rays of the sun crawled across the horizon. They were yellow, then red, then brown, then gone. Lois didn’t see colors anymore. Only shadows and shapes. The world was shades of gray. Her thoughts weren’t the same, either. She wanted only to survive, to feed, to find a dark place in which to sleep. It was an easier life, and she didn’t regret it, or miss what she’d once been. Didn’t regret her mother, whose heart, surprisingly, had not been bitter.

  On Sunday night, she woke in a clearing. The sun didn’t hurt her kind, but it put them to rest like dolls laid flat, their eyelids closed. The others did not dream, or remember the day. Their sleep was deep, and during it their bodies changed. But she was different. She could feel the things around her even when the sun was bright.

  There had been a moment there when she’d been frightened. Danny Walker had cracked her bones. But he was gone now, and so was his threat. From now on she would sleep in a covered place.

  Her body had changed. She was longer in the torso, and her knees and elbows had thickened. It hurt her to stand; she preferred to crawl. She was becoming the same as the virus that lived inside her. Already her hair and eyelashes had fallen out: a hundred wishes on her finger, but she wanted just one thing—Ronnie and Noreen’s blood.

  Around her were bodies. One thousand, two thousand. Five thousand. More than she could count. When she woke Sunday night, her bones were whole again. All cuts and wounds healed in this place. All things were eternally temporary.

  In her dreams her soul lived underground. She’d been separated from it. Instead of feeding on her body, the worms ate her soul. In her dreams it wasn’t the virus that gave her hunger; it was her body, longing for its mate. It was the ashes in her mouth from this deal she had made with a lover not even human.

  But those were dreams, of course.

  She had no regrets, of course.

  She stood, and around her the children knelt. The virus was instinct, and she was direction. Together they were better than their parts. She had a plan. They were feeding too fast, and unwisely. They were making too many of their own kind. They would be more selective in spreading the virus, and they would harvest what they ate. In her way, she would be a scientist, after all.

  She touched her belly. In this she was not gentle, either. The thing in her stomach had not adjusted to the change, and while she slept, it had died. There was no pain. There were no cramps. Its corpse remained fixed inside her, a fossil of skin.

  The old Lois Larkin screamed at her from under the ground, and she was glad she’d buried it there. She hated that woman almost as much as she hated herself.

  As Danny Walker fled the Bedford woods, she and the children woke, and then slithered through the rainy night.

  THIRTY-ONE

  The Lump in the Bed

  Sunday night, Graham Nero sat up with a start. He felt better than he’d felt in years. Strong, vital, a fucking he-man. The room was dark, but he could still see the floral bedspread and yellow wallpaper. Could see the fibers and specks of dust that hovered in a thin layer over the thick blue carpet. Could hear the weak mewing of his brood.

  A lump lay in the bed next to him. She’d always been a lump. Useless dead weight. Got knocked up a week after their wedding. Told him the pill wasn’t fail-safe, but he was no fool. He called the pharmacy. She hadn’t refilled her prescription in months!

  She quit her job as an executive assistant at his office to raise the kid, so suddenly he’d been stuck making payments on the house that they’d bought at the height of the market all by his lonesome. Eight hundred thousand dollars is a lot of steak dinners, especially when your partner in crime can’t gather enough scratch to cover the country club fee. When he met her, she’d seemed like somebody who could take care of herself. Efficient on the phone, typed forty words per minute, dressed in discount suits that weren’t all that stylish, but had fit her curves just right. He’d never guessed what lurked underneath.

  Now she worked part-time in circulation at the Corpus Christi Sentinel. Every couple of months they threw her a bone and let her write a bleeding heart human interest piece about halfway houses or crystal meth-addicted kids. She’d wanted to be a writer her whole life. At least once a week she thanked him for supporting her in doing it, as if he’d had a choice. After she got knocked up, the bank told her that unless she came back full-time, to clean out her desk.

  That’s what he liked about Meg Wintrob. She worked for a living. She didn’t sulk to get her way; she yelled. He wished she’d come with him to room 69 the other day. Instead he’d had to settle for an
underage girl from the bar. She’d tasted young, and now his favorite hotel room was a mess.

  Graham could smell his own breath, and it wasn’t good. He pulled a tin of Altoids from his suit pocket (he’d stolen a whole carton of them from Puffin Stop), and crunched on about twenty at once. Smarted, but he kept chewing. Then he wondered: Why did I wear my suit to bed?

  Down the hall his brood wailed. Maybe she was hungry. Or scared, or stupid. Isabelle reminded him of Caitlin. The women in his life were the rocks tied to his ankles in a ten-foot pond.

  He looked at the bed. The brood didn’t stop crying, and predictably, his lump didn’t get up. He put his feet on the cold floor. He was late for work, wasn’t he? The bitch had forgotten to wake him and make his coffee…But wait, it was night, and Sunday, at that. Did he usually sleep during the day?

  In the mirror he didn’t see his face. Only a silhouette. The rashes on his neck and chest were gone. His cough was gone, too. How had he gotten the virus? Oh, right, the high school girl he’d met at the bar a few nights ago had leaned in to kiss him, and instead she’d bitten him! He couldn’t remember, now, what had happened next. Only that he’d been hungry.

  None of that mattered, though. All that mattered was his clean-shaven face and the dimple in his chin that the ladies liked to trace with their slender fingers. Even the girl from room 69. What was her name? Sheila, Laura, Dora, Flora? He couldn’t remember. She’d been his first fatty.

  He swished a mouthful of Listerine and spit. Smelled his breath, rancid, and cracked open another tin of Altoids.

  Out the window, the streets were empty. Not even street lamps were lit, which was nice, because he hated the light. The radio played softly, Stravinsky. His wife’s music. He changed the station. The news was a special bulletin. Keep your doors and windows locked. Do not go out at night, the announcer exclaimed.