The Missing Read online

  Graham smiled at the mirror. The toupee was on the sink, and he decided to leave it there. He liked his new look. Sleek. He used to spend hours in the bathroom. Even when Caitlin knocked because she had to pee, he’d never opened the door until he was ready. Once he’d caught the ninny squatting into a jar in the kitchen because the downstairs toilet was broken and she couldn’t hold it in. He smiled at the memory. Then he opened the door. He was hungry.

  The lump under the covers reminded him of Meg Wintrob. That she’d turned him down was a splinter in his foot. Insignificant until you notice it, and then relentless. If she had come with him, he wouldn’t have suffered through the nervous giggles of the virgin. If she’d come with him, maybe they could have fed together.

  She’d called him about six months ago and told him it was over. Like he hadn’t already moved on to the stripper at Lucifer’s Delight Men’s Club. Meg had a good body and he liked her, but she was long in the tooth. In a year or two, her eggs would be old, and her crotch would stink. He’d seen it before in the women who waited to marry at his office. They became moody vice-presidents who went on Internet dates, and by the time they were forty-five they smelled.

  Yeah, so she dumped him, and he’d smiled and said, Sure, babe, even though he’d wanted to cut her into little pieces. Didn’t the skinny bitch know he’d been doing her a favor? He’d pretended she was sexy, even though he had a wife at home with a double-D cup size and a dimpled smile.

  He’d been thinking about her for a long time now. After he got the infection, he’d thought about her even more. It was like a switch had been turned inside him, and he couldn’t let her go. When he closed his eyes she was waiting with folded arms, like nothing he could buy for her, no tricks with his tongue, would ever be good enough.

  A few days ago, holding Isabelle with one hand and eating an apple in the other, Caitlin offered him a back rub, and he’d snapped. He’d been sick then, but not completely infected. It had only been a cough, a rash, a few clumps of hair here and there. His hand had been in the air, and then against her skin. Again and again. Until he was tired. Until his hands and teeth ached. Then he’d washed his hands and mouth with scented soap until the water stopped running pink. His next stop was the library. He’d pulled back every stop on the Graham Nero charm-o-meter. It hit irresistible. Meg Wintrob had still said no.

  Graham started down the hall. The lump under the sheets had begun to smell, so he left it there. It was red and still a little wet. Lazy bitch hadn’t even cleaned it. He passed Isabelle’s room. She sat in her crib, her lips blue, her face white as snow, her eyes black. She was hungry, but she didn’t know how to feed. The kid was useless, just like her mother.

  He went down the stairs and opened the front door. Looked out into the night. In the darkness, there were others. Their bodies long and lean; graceful. They shone in the moonlight. They sniffed from house to house, looking for the scraps that remained. Meg Wintrob on his mind, Graham stepped out into the night on two legs, and then ran on four.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Mostly It Was Just Plain Sad

  Ronnie woke up from his nap. It was Sunday night, and he and Noreen were sitting on the couch. His cough was gone, and so was Noreen’s. He felt good, sort of. He felt the strongest he’d been since high school, when he was Corpus Christi High’s longest-armed shortstop. But he felt mean, too. Something inside him was tearing things up. He blamed Noreen. She’d done this to him, the bitch. He wanted to rip out her throat, just a little bit.

  It was business as usual at the Ronnie and Noreen chateau of domestic bliss. He was watching Gilmore Girls in rerun because Noreen had the remote. There wasn’t any food in the fridge. Nothing worth eating, at least. All the meat was gone, so right now he and Noreen were passing a rat between them. It was bleeding all over his chin.

  It made him sick, the sight of that rat. He hated it, and still he kept eating.

  He was hungry all the time now. Didn’t matter how often he ate. He was tired when the daylight came, too, His pot stash was gone, which was the only thing he’d valued in his shitty life. Worse, his dealers were dead, which meant he wasn’t getting more.

  The change happened this morning. His eyes turned black. He remembered gasping, and praying for something, but he couldn’t remember what. Something to do with peace. He’d been asking for peace. And then he didn’t remember anything at all, except for waking up tonight in front of the television with Noreen, watching the Gilmore Girls.

  Noreen was laughing. The older Gilmore girl was saying something smart and witty. “You’re a couple of dogfaces,” Ronnie said to the television screen, which wasn’t like him. Before he got sick he never would have said something mean like that.

  Noreen turned and spit in his face. It landed on his lip and rolled slowly down. He didn’t think about it; he just acted. He throttled her. She fought at first. Thrashed against the Jennifer Convertible stain-resistant plaid couch, but then her face turned from white to blue. Her whole body jerked, like she was dying, and he knew he hated her. Hated himself. Hated what they’d become. But he was so goddamn hungry.

  He let go. As soon as she caught her breath she tried to strike him. Plump baby hand all curled into a fist. He grabbed her arm and squeezed until it broke. But that was fine. She healed fast. He couldn’t hurt Noreen unless he killed her, no matter how hard he tried.

  “I’m hungry. I don’t want rat,” he said.

  She nodded. “We’ll go to the Dew Drop Inn.”

  They left the apartment. He headed for the car, but she didn’t. “We don’t need that,” she said, and it was true. He was walking on four legs. His body was low to the ground, which was nice. Made it easier to catch the things that crawled. Spiders, mostly. He preferred insects over the things for which Noreen had an appetite.

  He followed her pale body down the street, fast as a deer. The air felt good. His eyes saw best in the dark. From the top of the hill, he could see all the way to the highway clogged with cars. They weren’t moving. Pulled over, or out of gas. The people driving them had been killed where they sat during the night. He could smell their bodies. Somebody had gotten lazy and left plenty of gristle.

  He wondered, briefly, if he was damned.

  They got to the Dew Drop Inn. Wooden planks boarded its doors, but he could see light through the cracks. Ronnie pried the nails with his fingers. The boards came off, along with some of his skin. But even before it started bleeding, the wound was already healing. He opened the door. TJ Wainright was sitting all by himself at the bar. He smelled sweet as a suckling pig, and he was high, too. When Ronnie saw the chemical red in his eyes, he moaned. He wanted that pot so bad. He started to charge, but TJ lifted a gun from the bar and pointed it between Ronnie’s eyes.

  Ronnie kept coming. He wanted TJ to shoot him. He was sick of being hungry all the time. He wanted this to end, while there was a part of him that was still human.

  Noreen held him back. “TJ, let me in, won’t you?” Her voice echoed, and Ronnie could hear it not just in his ears, but in his mind.

  TJ looked up, only his eyes were different. Noreen had gotten inside them. He looked at the gun for a couple of seconds, like he knew he was doing something stupid but couldn’t help himself. Then he placed the gun on the bar. “That’s right, TJ. Noreen knows best,” she said. Ronnie got dizzy just listening to her. The virus was stronger in her than in him, he suddenly realized, which wasn’t good news. Noreen looked at him and smiled, like she’d just figured that out, too.

  “We’ll all have a drink. I’m sorry about your boyfriend, TJ. But you had to do it. We understand,” she said, and TJ nodded: “He woulda bit me otherwise.”

  Noreen lunged. Ronnie could smell TJ’s fear. TJ didn’t fight, or even scream. Noreen moved a little bit, so that there was space for Ronnie to nibble, too. He closed his eyes like it was just more spiders, or a squirrel, and began. When they were done, it was like TJ Wainwright had never been. All that was left was his scalp, and few hunks of bone.<
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  Soon, Ronnie would be like Noreen. His fingernails would fall out, and his skin would thicken. He wouldn’t be Ronnie Koehler anymore. Maybe even now, he wasn’t Ronnie Koehler. He thought about that, and wished, once again, that he was dead. But he was so fucking hungry.

  That’s when she came into the bar. The gap between her teeth was gone, and so was her hair. He remembered the present he’d found on his welcome mat. He’d left it there because he’d been afraid that if he took it inside, she’d come looking for it.

  He could see the blue veins under her skin. She’d grown a few inches taller, even though she didn’t walk on two feet anymore. She stood above all the rest. The virus was strongest in her, which was funny in a way, but mostly sad. He didn’t want to see her like this. He liked her, he realized. And that was sad, too.

  Behind Lois were more of them. At least a hundred. Probably more.

  “Lois,” Noreen said like they were best buddies, still. She crawled across the floor on all fours, and kissed Lois’s hands.

  Lois, Ronnie thought in his mind, I’m sorry. He looked around at the crowd, hoping to find a friendly face, but there was a mean thing inside them, and it had changed the way they looked. It was inside him, too, and he wanted to weep.

  Lois came to him. Her ring finger was missing, and he wondered how many times a night she had to eat the stump to keep it from growing back.

  He took a chance. He kissed the stump of her ring finger.

  Lois stepped back and opened her arms. The others became still, and listened. “There’s too many of us. The animals are gone. The people are gone. There won’t be enough food left. These two have fed unwisely, and we must make an example of them.”

  It happened fast. He and Noreen were holding hands. He tried to run, but Noreen wouldn’t let go. They converged on him. He wished Lois had killed him before now. Before he’d become this thing, and murdered a man. The floor of the bar groaned and split under their weight as the infected attacked.

  Ronnie and Noreen fell into the cellar. Up above a sky of pale faces peered down at them. One by one they jumped down and began to feed. He felt his life leaving him, and wished that she’d killed him before now, when he had no soul to free him from this body. But at least, finally, as he took his last breath, Noreen finally let go of his hand.

  THIRTY-THREE

  The Victorian

  The women were waiting when Fenstad got home. Maddie ran to him, and he held her stiffly. “Daddy, I’m so glad you’re safe. Did you see Enrique?” she asked. Her green eyes peered up at him like a kitten’s.

  “No. I didn’t see him.”

  Meg limped across the kitchen. He noticed that she was walking worse now than when she’d first gotten the cast. It was healing wrong because she wasn’t using her crutches. She needed it broken and reset if she ever wanted to walk without a limp, but there wasn’t anybody around to do that, except him. He winced at the thought of such a thing, or having to go back to the hospital for more plaster.

  “I can’t get in touch with David to let him know, but we’ve got to get out of here,” Meg said.

  Fenstad didn’t answer. Maddie let go and stood back so that the three of them formed a circle. It was dark out, and already Meg had heard sounds she didn’t like. The animals were gone, so who was moaning out the window? “I packed our clothes in a bag on the bed. We’ll stay with your parents in Connecticut.”

  “We don’t have the gas,” Fenstad said.

  Meg was leafing through the kitchen cabinets. She hadn’t taken a codeine all day, and her ankle was swollen and hurting. Fiery sparks of pain radiated through her leg, all the way up to her groin. She filled a few jugs with water, and then started pulling cans from the pantry. Creamed corn, pineapple slices, tuna. In a pinch, they’d make a meal. “Go now,” she said to Maddie. “Get the bag you packed, and mine and Daddy’s, too.”

  Maddie nodded solemnly and started out of the room. She looked like she’d aged ten years since flopping down the stairs this morning. Meg felt for her. All day she’d wanted to give in and look for Enrique. But what if they found him, and like the rest he was infected?

  Fenstad didn’t help her with the supplies. He looked like he’d been crying again, which she knew was a bad sign. “The deadbolts were a good idea,” she said. He didn’t even nod. “What is it? What happened? Did you get Lila out of the hospital? Does she need to come with us?”

  “Nothing out of the ordinary. Business as usual,” he said.

  She cocked her head. “I doubt that…Anyway, we’ve got to get going.”

  Fenstad didn’t move. “We can’t leave.”

  “Christ, Fenstad! Look around. We’ve got to get out of here!” she shouted. Then something caught in her throat, and she tried not to cry. She lowered her voice. “I can’t stay here.”

  “It’s a virus. It’s everywhere, Meg. By now it’s probably global. Leaving won’t make a difference.”

  She laid her hand flat on the marble counter so she could hold herself more erect. “This is the center. Everything started here. We’ll be safer once we’re outside of it.”

  He shook his head. “You’re hysterical. You need to calm down. The worst thing we can do now is get Maddie upset, too. The worst thing we can do is travel like this, without a plan.” His diction, she noticed, was especially stiff. He pronounced every word fully, and with equal emphasis.

  “What’s wrong with you?” she asked.

  He looked at her for a while, and set his jaw in disdain. “You’re the one with the problem. We can’t run from them. The second we step outside, especially at night. They…Don’t you understand? They feed.” His eyes got far away, and she could tell he was remembering something. She’d hoped all the rumors were false. She’d hoped he would tell her that all of this could be rationally explained. She knew for sure now that wasn’t going to happen.

  Then he was smiling. It was a blank smile, like the real Fenstad had decided to take a nap behind those green eyes. “There’s no gas—you think you’re going to walk to Connecticut on that ankle? Hey, I know! We’ll pick a couple of guns up at the police department. They won’t need them—they’re all dead. Then we’ll walk to Connecticut in the dark. If it turns out my parents are infected, we’ll shoot ’em! It’ll be great. You’re a genius, Meg.”

  Meg closed the pantry door. What a jerk was her first thought. Her second was: He’s right. Her plan would get them killed, or worse, infected. When she’d told Maddie they were leaving this morning, she’d assumed that Fenstad would take care of everything. She’d give the order, and he’d carry it out. He’d plop them into the car, and they’d arrive at his parents’ house by the sheer strength of her will and his wits. She could rest for a while. Snooze in the backseat, because he’d drive. But none of that was going to happen. She limped toward him. Her left leg slid across the floor. She hadn’t cleaned the kitchen since Monday, and her cast was black with dirt. This place was turning into a sty. “So what do we do?”

  He gritted his teeth. “For the last time, would you use your goddamn crutches?”

  “Okay,” she said, and kept walking toward him. The musky scent of his sweat was strong. She liked that smell; it was specifically Fenstad. He’d been wearing the same jeans and shirt for four days now. It was strange, she’d made a point of leaving fresh shirts on top of his dresser.

  “I’m not kidding. And take a codeine. It hurts just looking at you sweat like that.”

  “I know,” she said, and now she was close enough. She leaned her head on his shoulder. He stiffened. She waited. He put his arms around her. To her own surprise, her eyes teared up. She held him tight. “I’m scared,” she said.

  He rested his chin on the top of her head and took a ragged breath. They stood there for a long while. She felt her muscles loosen. He wasn’t acting like the man she’d married. The man she married never said a word in anger. Never, for that matter, said an angry word. Still, it felt good to be in his arms. It felt good to rest.

 
; Finally she pulled away from him. “I don’t know what I’d do without you,” she said.

  His eyes were red. He nodded, like he felt the same way, and she wondered how, over the last few years, they’d managed to drift so far apart, when between them there was so much love. “Tell me what happened to you at the hospital. Tell me what you saw,” she said.

  He looked out the window for a while, and she thought maybe she’d gotten to him. She’d cracked him. It was scary, because she wasn’t sure she wanted to see him crack. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what he looked like, when all his walls came down. “Tell me,” she said.

  A tear rolled down the side of his face, and more than anything else, it was the tear that sent her pulse soaring fast enough to make her whole body throb. This had to be very bad. “The virus turns your mind. It knows the things that make you weak. Like about your dad. About me. I hit a woman, Meg. I hit my patient. I think…I’m suffering from a nervous br—” He was interrupted by a loud crash in the front hall.

  They looked at each other, and Meg couldn’t help it. She sobbed. She’d heard there were looters who roamed at night. Worse things than looters…The bones on the lawn.

  In the front hall, the stained-glass bay window had been shattered. A huge hunk of slate from their roof lay on the Persian rug. Fenstad bent down and examined it for a long time.

  “What happened?” Maddie hollered as she came pounding down the stairs.

  “We don’t know. Go back to your room. Lock the windows. Draw the curtains,” Meg said.

  “Can I help?” Maddie asked.

  “You can help by going to your room.”

  Maddie frowned but didn’t resist. “I’ll be here if you need me,” she said, and started back up the stairs.