by S. D. Perry
“And you’ll be careful, you’ll take someone with you as a lookout, won’t you?” She gave him such a stern, motherly look that he almost laughed. “It could be dangerous.”
Darrin nodded soberly. “Don’t worry, I’m all over it. You know, when I was in high school, some guys I knew used to go out and do stuff like this, and this one time—”
“Only don’t take Terrence. He crumples under pressure.”
“Oh, ah, sure.”
“You don’t think me a hypocrite, do you?” Her frown deepened. “After all my talk about being an adult, for me to even condone this kind of thing…it’s inappropriate, isn’t it?”
“No, not at all. I mean, what they did to your pets. I love animals, their…” He reached for the turn of phrase she’d used more than once, telling her boring stories over dinner. “Their essential innocence, you know? How they’re so completely themselves.”
“That’s exactly what I always say,” she said, her eyes wide.
“And for those assholes—I’m sorry, excuse me, but it’s so infuriating—for them to murder them, and then…then taunt you with it.” He shook his head, playing the offended sensitive artist that she believed him to be, though actually, he fucking hated cats. Disgusting animals. “They deserve a little payback for something like that.”
“Still, you won’t tell the others, will you? That it was my idea? Only I’d feel terrible if word got around that I’d encouraged conflict, of any kind.” She gave him a sweet smile, and for just a moment, he could see what she’d looked like thirty years younger. “I have my reputation to think about.”
“Hey, as far as I’m concerned, you don’t know anything about it,” Darrin said.
Miranda seemed to relax, her puckery old face softening. “You would do that for me?”
“Consider it done.”
“And you’ll let me know, the night you choose,” she said. “So I’m not surprised by anything.”
Talk about control freak. Darrin smiled warmly at her. “Absolutely. I’ll take care of everything, you just focus on the, ah, event.”
She brightened. “Five of our community members will be reading,” she said, “not including myself. It’s going to be a wonderful night for all of us, for the town. For some of the locals, it will be the cultural highlight of the season.”
Miranda Greene-Moreland happily chatted her way out the door. It wasn’t until after she’d left that it occurred to him to wonder what had changed her mind about retaliation against Jessup and his crew…and to decide that event or no, he would be paying the survivalists a visit in the next night or two. He wouldn’t “distract” any of the artists; he’d do his first run solo. Nothing too creative, just broken windows or slashed tires. He’d want it to look like kids, but effective. And it was certainly due. Miranda was pretentious and dull, but Jessup and his people were fucking assholes; they needed a beat-down.
Kim showed up before his planning went any further, a lascivious smile on her uninviting, flat face as she locked the studio door behind her. For the sake of his newly burgeoning erection, Darrin stopped thinking about Miranda Greene-Moreland.
Georgia Duray stood in her small, neat kitchen, watching a grilled cheese sandwich burn on the dented griddle on the stovetop. She wore a grin that she wasn’t really aware of…nor was she aware that her hand kept drifting up to touch her hairline, where blood had dried to a sticky film after Nick had beat her with one of his battered cowboy boots. Her husband of almost six years was drunk, of course, passed out upstairs in front of their ancient TV, but the black smoke starting to rise from the burning sandwich would take care of that quickly enough…she thought she had maybe two or three minutes until the smoke alarm kicked on.
Georgia had known when she’d married him that Nick had a problem with his temper, much like her own father had, and knew from the talk shows that he’d probably watched his dad beat on his mother when he was a kid. He didn’t talk about it, but that kind of thing was generally learned behavior—so said the sincere-faced doctors on those afternoon shows—and would continue to cycle from generation to generation until someone made a conscious effort to stop it. Georgia touched her lower belly, where she imagined her jelly-bean-size baby was curled up sleeping, and again felt the rightness of what she’d decided to do; since Nick obviously wasn’t interested in changing—he’d gotten worse, in fact, since she’d announced her pregnancy only a month earlier, drinking and then picking fights practically every other night—it was up to her to break the cycle. She’d changed, though. Quiet, sweet little Georgia, five foot two and a hundred pounds, timid to the point of transparency, had become responsible for a life besides her own, and she meant to protect it. After the last beating, three days prior—a series of shoves and slaps and pinches that had finally culminated in a silent, spiteful rape, all because she’d forgotten to unload the dishwasher—she’d had an idea, a dark, breathtaking idea, and that idea had blossomed into a plan.
The smoke from the burning bread and butter was thickening, had begun to pool at the ceiling. Georgia watched cheese ooze out of the sandwich, sizzling when it touched the scratched surface of the pan. It was time.
She pulled her silky pink flowered robe tight around her body, turned, and walked out of the kitchen to the front hall. She stood at the bottom of the stairs, the scuffed tile cold against her bare feet, looking up to the open doorway of their bedroom. Inconsistent blue light from the television played across the wall and the carpet, and she heard screams and gunfire from whatever movie he’d passed out watching. The basket of laundry and a pile of folded towels sat on the landing at the very top of the stairs, and with the lights down, the fishing line she’d stretched between the rail and the wall—some previous owner had installed a safety gate at the top step, and the screws were still sticking out of the wainscoting’s base—was invisible, at least from where she stood. Nick, drunk and angry as she expected him to be, would never see it. He wouldn’t take notice of the things on the lower three steps, either, a place they regularly put things to take up later—the stack of library books, the box of picture frames she was going to store in the attic, a bag of hangers. Why would he? There was nothing unexpected there.
The burning smell was strong, smoke trickling out of the kitchen, rising toward the second-floor landing. The smoke wouldn’t wake him up—she knew for a fact he’d consumed almost half a fifth of the cheap bourbon he liked, the one with the medal on the label—but she was pretty sure the alarm would. She placed her hands on her soft belly, an inch or so beneath her navel, not nearly so nervous as she’d expected. She noticed her grin and grinned wider. She was a smart, nice person, and she was going to be a good mother. Nick was a bad man, everyone knew it; they knew he was a drinker and an abuser. He’d go to hell for what he’d done to her. Maybe there had been love, once upon a time, but that didn’t change the obvious fact that the world would be a better place without him. He didn’t deserve life…and the baby didn’t deserve him for a father.
The sensor finally caught the first whiff of smoke and started to sound, urgent, demanding attention. Georgia waited, going over her list of things to do. The list was very short, which seemed best; she’d kept the plan simple, sure that she would mess up anything too complicated.
After what seemed an eternity of the piercing alarm, she heard Nick in the bedroom, a muffled curse. She heard him get off the bed, heard his stumbling footfalls, and there he was, leaning against the bedroom door’s frame, his hair sticking up, an ugly expression on his bleary face as he stared up at the smoke detector. He couldn’t reach it, she knew, without a chair or a footstool.
He took a single step forward—and then stopped, finally noticing the smoke. He looked down, saw Georgia.
“What the fuck you doin’? Did you burn something?”
Georgia didn’t answer.
“Jesus, Georgia, get the fucking stepstool up here!” He staggered to the top of the stairs, the ugly expression just for her, now. “Stupid bitch. What t
he fuck are you cookin’ this late?”
“Grilled cheese.” She knew her grin was back and didn’t care if he saw it. She had to raise her voice to be heard over the alarm, but that was all right. “I was dizzy, see, after you hit me. After you hit me with your boot. And I started the sandwich, because you told me to make you one, and then I guess I passed out. I didn’t even hear the alarm.”
He stared at her, blinking, his hands clenching into fists. “You can hear it now, can’t you?”
Georgia shook her head, which still ached, badly. “I’m unconscious, Nick. I can’t hear anything.”
“You are so fucking stupid,” he said, and started for her—
—and his foot caught the line, and down he came. It happened fast, his arms flying out, his expression turning from ugly anger to ugly surprise. His head hit the wall, his foot slid on the pile of towels, and then he was crashing down, limbs slapping against the rail, and she heard a snapping sound and one of his legs seemed to turn sideways. He somehow managed to miss the books, but the heavy box of frames was in just the right place. Glass broke, and the bag of hangers seemed to explode like a jangling bomb, and then he was at her feet, his right leg twisted under him. There was a bleeding gash in his throat, and the way he held his chest, the gasping, spluttering breath he took and the way his eyes rolled suggested that maybe he’d punctured a lung, or at least had some internal injuries. Serious ones, probably.
He panted, let out a groan, panted more. The alarm continued its bright serenade, although there seemed to be less smoke now; it was hard to say.
“Help,” he gasped, and sounded weak, like he was badly hurt. It was going better than she’d even hoped.
The box of frames had been overturned and crushed, shattered glass and broken wood sticking out everywhere. Georgia bent down and used the edge of her robe to pick up a long, jagged shard of thick glass from the floor, careful not to cut herself, careful not to touch the glass with her bare fingers. She leaned over her husband. The cut on his throat was bleeding heavily, but not quite heavily enough.
“Help,” he whispered, she could barely hear him over the bleating alarm, and she nodded, and inserted the glass into his wound, and pushed.
Nick screamed, but the sound was too raspy, too broken to be very loud, and he flailed his arms. He belted her hands away, hard enough to hurt, but the pain didn’t bother her. That seemed fair. The glass stuck out of his neck, bobbing and weaving, and as he dropped his arms, gasping ever louder, she leaned in and kind of slapped at it, with the heel of her hand, still wrapped in the robe. She was surprised how easily it cut. There was a brief resistance but then a kind of tearing feeling, and then he was gurgling blood, grabbing at the piece of glass, jerking it out. It fell on the tile by his head and broke.
He tried to scream again, and then he tried to speak, and then he grabbed his bleeding neck and tried to roll over, but there was nothing for him to do. The blood from his throat continued to pulse out, and she saw a spreading stain on the front of his ratty T-shirt a bit lower down, another piece of glass poking through his shirt near his stomach. She watched as a pool of red formed on the tile around his shaking upper body, watched as the panic, the awareness of what was happening brightened his muddy eyes. Not much longer, she thought. She stood and stepped over him, watching her feet. It wouldn’t do to get blood on them, or glass, and she didn’t want to disturb the mess on the stairs. She cautiously moved up each step, remembering the night after her best friend’s bachelorette party when he’d called her a stupid slut and pushed her into the heavy kitchen table and she’d dislocated her shoulder…then she was grinning again. Not as stupid as he thought. She unknotted the fishing line and carried it to the bathroom, dropped it in the toilet, flushed. Back down the stairs, she warily stepped over her husband—he was unconscious or dead now, and the pulse of blood had become a drool, and the puddle had become a lake—and headed back to the kitchen. The smoke had definitely started to thin out, but that was all right; the alarm would keep going for a while. By now, the neighbors were probably starting to wonder.
The grilled cheese, solidly burned to the pan, was still smoking. Georgia picked up the spatula, took a deep breath—and then let herself fall, dropping the utensil, staggering a bit as she crashed to the floor so that it would look right, should someone find her before she “woke up.” The story would tell itself, she was pretty sure. If the house caught on fire, she would come around just enough to crawl to safety, but she thought rescue would occur before then. Their closest neighbors, the Desmonds, were retired and nosy; they were probably already calling the police to complain about the noise or headed over to see what was happening. They knew that Steve drank, and likely knew that he smacked her around sometimes…but she had no doubt that she’d be able to produce a few tears if any questions were asked. The baby had lost his or her father, after all, and that was sad.
Georgia closed her eyes to wait, thinking of baby names.
CHAPTER TWENTY
DREAM IMAGERY
The woman with the blood in her hair. Smiling. Thinking about…something burning? NOTE: Haven’t seen this one for three days at least (since 7/7?)
The boy in the hall of mirrors. Maybe 12, 13? It’s dark, he thinks he’s being followed, he’s scared. Feels sick.
The mother bathing her child. Her hair is tied back, she and the baby—2-3 mos?—are both crying. She (mother) weeps from exhaustion.
Big building fire at night. Person watching is a man. Young?
Woman hiding in bushes, sounds of screams and gunfire (can’t see anything but leaves). Early. She has to pee. Someone yelling “Get down!”
PRECOG/ONE TIMEONLY
Lisa Meyer (nothing about Billings murder/suicide, tho—also nothing about Le Poisson).
B. Glover/Dicks assault.
Devon, drowned.
Lawn King suicide.
Greg Taner, enlist?
Liz Shannon loses virginity/gets pregnant(?)
Amanda stared down at the notebook, trying to think. Should she add another category for thoughts and emotions? She kind of didn’t want to, considering how much of it there was…plus, Devon fucking Mitch Jessup, that time she’d kind of gotten “in” to Eric, John having sex with Sarah, whoever she was. Thinking about having to discuss that stuff with grown men made her uncomfortable.
There were several things she didn’t want to put down…or didn’t know how to put down. Bob and his drinking, for one. She could write that on the way home from John’s office, right before Eric had gotten all freaky, she’d felt Bob’s deep, persistent desire to be pouring alcohol down his throat…but who would that help? Bob knew he drank, he knew he’d been drinking too much, and he was either helpless to stop it or he just didn’t care. And John’s confusion, his super brainiac chaos…he was entirely aware of what was going on; he didn’t need her to spell it out. He was way smart. Obviously, they were both experiencing mood shifts, changes of thought, difficulties with control…had she changed, too? If anything, she felt stronger lately. Like, cooler, emotionally. She thought that even six months ago, Grace kicking her out would have wrecked her—same with Peter’s attempted rape, or even Devon leaving. Now, though, she felt like she was coping really well, not letting it get through to her…changed, though?
Well, not counting the whole totally psychic aspect…
She almost smiled. Sudden access to ESP probably qualified as a change. Now that she thought of it, maybe there were other people in Port Isley who’d gotten, like, powers in the last month or so. Why not? There was all kinds of stuff she couldn’t explain—the last few days, wherever she’d been, she’d felt…it was like there were these free-floating pockets of anxiety that she kept blundering into, that didn’t seem to be connected to anyone in particular, random feelings of tension, strain, fear…and of secretiveness, of things hiding, of things held back. Like there was this incredible energy of restraint, of strong feelings that were being clamped down on, hard, and she didn’t think she could e
xplain that to anyone, it was such a weird, unformed feeling. If Devon were here, he’d understand what she meant…
Devon. She looked around his room, where she’d been sleeping since Sid had come home; Devon’s uncle had pointed out that if she was going to be around for a while, she might as well have a door she could close. Thank God for Uncle Sid. It was a comfortable room, dark colors, good smells—faded cigarette smoke, hair product. Devon’s spendy unisex cologne, the one she always teased him about, telling him it smelled like lemon soap and anal lubricant. She’d talked to him exactly once since he’d been gone, for about two minutes. He’d been on his way out somewhere. He’d sounded…busy. Out of breath almost, to get off the phone, to get moving; his questions were rote, and he cut off her answers. She’d hung up feeling depressed and lonely. And he hadn’t even been gone a full week.
Not that she was alone. She had Eric.
She sighed, leaning back on Devon’s too-soft bed. Eric. The sex continued to be devastatingly satisfying, which made it hard to work through some of the other parts. They still hooked up at his house, at random hours…his dad and stepmom were perpetually out, cocktails or dinner or boating, though she had finally met them. Yikes. His father was a stereotype, a business-guy dad from an eighties comedy flick. He winked all the time. And his fake-boob wife was practically a teenager, which was just creepy. It was hard to believe that they were Eric’s family, that he had any connection to them at all.
After their visit to John Hanover’s office, after Bob had taken them back to Devon’s, Eric had kind of flipped out over what had happened. He’d gone off on her about privacy, about how it wasn’t cool that she hadn’t told him that she could read minds, how it wouldn’t be cool if she tried to read his mind, how he’d be offended, blah blah blah. It had been more like a tantrum than a real fight…and she’d felt it coming off him in waves, then—his very deep feelings for her, and his fear that she would leave him if she knew. She didn’t call him on it, obviously—considering what he was yelling about, the timing would have been fuck awful—but she’d been a little freaked-out herself. Mostly because his deep feelings were so dark to her, so hard to understand. She got a sense of that profound need she’d felt before, lust and longing and something like terror at the thought of losing her, and she didn’t know what to do with that. She felt those things too, sometimes. Sort of. Other times, the realization that he was about a hundred times more invested in “them” than she was made her feel like running, as fast and as far away as she could get.