by Megan Hart
He took the wheel, thinking only after he’d turned the key in the ignition that she might expect to drive, but Abbie just looked out the window and chewed on her thumbnail. Her hair had fallen across her face again. He liked that she didn’t feel she needed to talk.
The drive to Marnie’s grandparents’ house took twice as long because of the wreckage still on the streets. Downed trees, emergency vehicles. He took a few back roads and wished for his pickup truck to go cross-country. Shit. He’d probably never get it back, at least not in one piece.
“This was a bad one, huh?” Her quiet voice from the passenger seat startled him a little.
“Yeah.”
“I’ve never been in a tornado before. It wasn’t like I thought it would be.”
“Me neither. Seen places where they went through, but wasn’t ever in one myself. But they said at the hospital it was one of the worst they’d seen in a long time.”
She looked at him then, the pale skin of her face traced lightly here and there with faint red scratches and the outlines of a few bruises. He’d done that when he shoved her into the bathtub. Her smile tipped just on one side. “But we made it through.”
She looked out the window again. “I didn’t know they bounced. Tornados, I mean. Apparently, they can bounce.”
She pointed into the distance, where the wind had ripped apart what had once been a cornfield but left the surrounding fields untouched. She leaned forward to click on the radio, found static and the blurt of some loud music, then the softer tones of a newscaster. A woman’s voice, some clipped accent he didn’t recognize. She was talking about the storms, what towns had been hit. The damage that had been done. How unusual the past few days had been, with not just the strength of the storms, but the locations.
“Wait a minute,” Abbie said. “What? New York state? Glen Wild? What? Oh my God.”
But the story had ended, replaced by a song Cal didn’t know and didn’t like. Abbie flicked the radio with her fingers to turn it off. She let out a series of slow, hitching breaths, like she was trying hard not to cry.
“Oh God,” she said. “I have to get home. I have to get home.”
They’d just pulled into the end of Marnie’s driveway, but at the sound of Abbie’s despair Cal stopped the car. She twisted in her seat to look at him; she wasn’t wearing her seat belt. Her dark eyes were narrowed, her mouth grim. She reached to curl her fingers in his shirt sleeve.
“I lost my phone,” she said. “I can’t call. I mean…I’m sure…tell me they’re okay, Cal. They’re okay, right?”
He didn’t have to ask who. He could guess she meant her kids, maybe a husband, even though he it seemed more than likely he’d be an ex. Cal understood. He leaned to put his hand on the back of her neck, and the weight of her hair tickled his knuckles.
“I’m sure they’re fine. We’ll find you a phone, so you can call. Okay? Marnie has a phone, if she hasn’t lost power you can use hers. Or she’ll have a cell phone.”
The towers were down and service out here was spotty even when tornados hadn’t ripped across the country. He had no actual idea if Marnie had a cell phone, though he supposed she probably still did since it was her inability to clear her text history that had tipped him off to her messing around on him. His offer didn’t seem to soothe Abbie, who’d started tapping her fingers against her thighs and the side of the door. He didn’t know what to say to make things better. She was a stranger, after all.
She didn’t cry, though, and that was fine with him. Crying women made Cal nervous. His mother’d been a wailer, a breast-beater. A sobber. She’d fallen apart at any little thing. It made his dad crazy when he couldn’t do anything for her, and Cal’d never learned how to do it either. He patted Abbie’s thigh though. Hoped that would be enough.
Marnie’s house hadn’t been hit too hard, not compared to the devastation they’d seen in other places. The barn had been ruined but not completely demolished, and the big tree in the backyard had taken a beating. The house looked okay, and as the tires of Abbie’s Volvo crunched on the gravel, the back door opened.
There she was, his ex-wife. She wore her hair shorter, to her shoulders instead of halfway down her back. Her breasts and belly were enormous under her nightgown. She raised a hand to her eyes to shade them, and he knew he didn’t imagine her smile.
It had faded by the time Cal got out of the car and approached her. Marnie looked past him, saw Abbie. Both of Marnie’s hands went to that big belly, and her eyes narrowed. He remembered that look. She was pissed.
“What are you doing here?” Marnie said as he put his boot onto the bottom step of her porch. “Who’s she?”
Abbie hadn’t come closer. Cal took his foot from the step. “I came to make sure you’re okay.”
“I’m fine.” Marnie lifted her chin and looked toward the ruins of what had been the barn. “Could’ve been worse.”
“How’s Tony?”
“He’s…fine,” Marnie said.
She’d never been a very good liar. She’d only managed to pull one over on him for so long because he’d chosen not to see the signs that his wife had been stepping out on him. He’d worked long hours, pretended to believe her when she told him she was going out with her girlfriends. He’d had his own secrets to keep by that point. It was easier for him to let her go than to try and keep her, not when he didn’t want her anymore.
Marnie looked again at Abbie. Repeated her question. “Who’s she?”
“This is Abbie,” Cal said. “I’m borrowing her car.”
“What happened to your truck?” A pause. A breath. “Oh. Sorry. But you’re okay?”
“Fine. I’m fine.” Cal looked around the yard. “You want me to take a look around? Make sure everything’s okay?”
It was the wrong thing to say, he saw that at once. Her eyes narrowed. Her lip curled. He knew that look, too. Marnie’s mouth opened, but before she could say anything, the kitchen door opened. Tony came out.
Cal’d met the guy a few times, once or twice before he knew Tony was fucking his wife, a few times after. He was a big guy, at least three inches taller than Cal and maybe twenty pounds heavier, but Cal was never afraid to go up against bigger men. Not that he’d ever had to go up against Tony, because even once Cal’d found out Marnie was cheating on him with the other guy, he’d never so much as given Tony a nasty look. A man who’d take another man’s wife deserved her, that’s what Cal figured.
“Get the fuck out of here,” Tony said.
Marnie didn’t so much as put a hand up to stop Tony from jumping off the porch and heading for Cal, who stood his ground. She laughed, though. Low and hoarse, her eyes bright, her smile twisted. She laughed at him, and Cal thought if he had a gun right then, he’d have pulled it out and shot her square between the eyes.
But he didn’t have a gun, did he, and why? Because he might never have put up a fight to stop his wife from walking out the door on another man’s arm, but he’d let the stress of it distract him until he couldn’t do his goddamned job. Because he’d been distracted the day he pulled over a couple of dick-heads high on pot who thought it was a good idea to run a stop sign and sideswipe an old lady in a Cadillac and then keep going. Because when the driver stumbled out from behind the wheel, both hands up, Cal hadn’t been paying attention to their friend in the backseat who’d been high on something stronger than weed. That friend’d had a knife, and he hadn’t been shy about sinking it into Cal’s shoulder, which had made Cal pull the trigger though he hadn’t been planning on it.
Cal had lost everything because of that pregnant bitch on the porch in front him, and the fucker who was now halfway across the yard to him. Tony had his hands up to grab the front of Cal’s shirt, but Cal wasn’t going to wait for the asshole to even get close enough to touch him. He moved forward, fists clenched.
His throat closed as the annoying tickle that had been plaguing him became a full-blown scratch. A cough ripped from him, and his mouth burned with the taste of it, b
ut he ignored it. His vision blurred. Heat filled him.
He was going to kill someone, and this time it wasn’t going to be an accident.
11
The men met each other halfway like two charging bulls, both of them with their hands out and faces twisted with fury. The taller guy was…growling, actually growling, the noise revving up and up like the sound of an engine stuck in gear. Cal made no sound, and Abbie found that scarier, that he could move forward with such violence and in such silence.
Cal’s ex-wife was laughing, that bitch, no simpering “tee-hee” but a full-on guffaw. Her hilarity sounded forced, each laugh a raspy bark that sounded like it would hurt. She clung to the porch railing like the effort of it was enough to knock her over, and Abbie suddenly wished it would.
The crack of flesh on flesh jerked her attention back to Cal and Tony. Cal had swung first, his fist connecting squarely with Tony’s jaw and sending him stumbling back a step or two with his fist still curled in the front of Cal’s shirt. Blood flew, along with clotted chunks of…something…Abbie couldn’t see what it was, but took a revolted step back anyway. She clapped a hand over her mouth at the sight of Tony’s head, bashed in so deeply on one side that his scalp hung flapping, the white bone of his skull flashing. And worse, a hint of something gray and red inside, down deep.
Still growling, Tony kept his feet and faced Cal again. Without letting go of Cal’s shirt, Tony punched with his other hand. Cal’s head rocked back so far Abbie was sure he was going to end up flat on his back, but Tony’s grip kept him upright. He swung again. And again.
Abbie screamed Cal’s name and leaped at the two men, but stopped herself. Neither of them even glanced in her direction. As Cal came up after Tony knocked him back, his fist connected under Tony’s jaw so hard that as they both stumbled in Abbie’s direction. Several of Tony’s teeth pattered into the dirt at her feet.
They were going to kill each other.
Once, in a parking lot outside a big name 24-hour discount store after midnight, Abbie’d watched two men squaring off over what appeared to be a gallon of spilled milk. The cops had arrived before anyone died, but both men had been carted off in an ambulance. They’d gone at each other only half as violently as Cal and Tony were.
The sound of knuckles hitting flesh became thick and wet as skin split and blood sprayed. They’d fallen, scuffling and scrabbling in the dirt, rolling over and over so they could get at each other with fists and nails and feet.
And teeth.
Horror slapped the breath from her at the sight of the long strip of flesh from Cal’s cheek caught in Tony’s mouth. He tore at it as Cal bellowed and wrenched Tony’s neck to the side.
“Call the police!” Abbie found only half a scream.
Cal’s ex-wife had stopped laughing, but she hadn’t lost her smile as she watched the carnage in her front yard. She took two steps off the porch and onto the grass, and at first Abbie thought she meant to try and pull the men apart. But then her gaze focused on Abbie, that smile disappeared, and then Marnie came at Abbie twice as fast as she’d ever have thought a heavily pregnant woman could run.
Abbie couldn’t imagine hitting another woman, much less a pregnant one, but she wasn’t about to stand there and let Marnie beat the shit out of her. Marnie might’ve been faster than expected, but her bulk still made her clumsy. Abbie stepped aside at the last minute. Marnie went sprawling onto her hands and knees in the grass with a howl that rent the air.
Tony turned with his fists and remaining teeth full of bits of Cal. His voice was a grinding horror. “Babe?”
That two seconds’ lack of attention was enough for Cal to dive at him from behind and drive the other man face-first into the ground. Tony hit the earth a few feet from Marnie with a bone-shattering crack.
His head broke open like a watermelon dropped from a second-story window. Cal, hands and face bloodied, stood up straight, shoulders heaving. He spat to the side, a dripping chunk of something gristly that didn’t belong to him but would never again fit back any place on Tony. In the bruising, blood-spattered mess of his face, his eyes were very, very bright.
And staring right at her.
He spat again and jerked his neck from side to side, but if he cracked any vertebrae the noise was lost alongside Marnie’s screams. She’d rolled onto her side, her hands gripping her belly, her white nightgown blossoming with red. A gush of crimson had already turned the earth to mud.
Oh God, oh shit, she was having the baby now…Abbie went to her knees to put a hand on Marnie’s belly. What had she meant to do? Offer comfort? Aid? Did she think she could…what…deliver the baby right there?
She saw her mistake within seconds when Marnie’s hand slammed down on Abbie’s wrist hard enough to crack the bones. Her other hand found Abbie’s throat. Choking. She snapped her teeth in Abbie’s face, feral, spit flying. They came within a breath of Abbie’s cheek and would’ve taken out a chunk out of her face if at that moment, Cal hadn’t grabbed the back of Abbie’s shirt and pulled her away.
She’d felt pain before. She knew the force of it, how agony could punch you breathless, how exquisitely it could push you into euphoria when your body could take no more. The pain of Cal’s fingers digging into her skin was nothing compared to the metal of a steering column puncturing her. The blunt sting of her ass hitting the ground as she dangled in his grip could not compare to the prick from a multitude of broken glass pieces stuck in her face from hitting the windshield. Yet she also knew how pain that began as something small could grow and grow until it became everything, and though she’d liked Cal a lot, more than any man she’d met in a long time, there was no fucking way in hell that Abbie was going to let him become everything to her.
She twisted out of his fingers and fell forward. She rolled. She scrabbled on the ground, away from Cal, away from Marnie, who’d yanked up her nightgown to expose the mountain of her belly. Cal grabbed again, but Abbie was too fast. She heaved herself forward on her hands and knees, away from Cal. Away from Marnie. She got to her feet, stumbling once and catching herself. The wrist Marnie’d grabbed and cracked now snapped.
It was Abbie’s turn to scream, but all that came out was a breathless, hissing whistle. She kept moving, waiting for Cal to grab her again, found her feet. Cradling her wrist, she took the time to glance over her shoulder. Cal stood over Marnie, who lay on her back.
Her stomach had split open. Something writhed in the mess of blood and flesh. Something forced itself out of the hollow of her womb and shrieked its fury.
Good Christ. Marnie’s baby had chewed or torn its way out of her…Abbie couldn’t tell, didn’t know, wasn’t going to wait around to find out. She backed up, heading for the car.
Before she could take more than a step or two, Cal faced her. His mouth yawned wide. He barked a cough. His hands fisted, clutching at his shirt and the denim of his jeans.
A cloud exploded from his face. Dark and swirling, it was thick enough to obscure his face. It shot from his mouth, his nose. His eyes. It came out in a gush of blood and it smelled like heaven, and before she could stop herself, Abbie had breathed it in.
There was no more pain. There was only bliss. She choked on it.
Marnie’s face exploded too. Cal toppled forward, but he didn’t stop moving. Behind him, his head a ruin, Tony stood up.
Long ago, in her before-this life, Abbie had been a huge fan of horror films. She knew the monster never died until the last frame, and the three people in front of her had definitely become monsters. Four, if you counted the infant squalling and writhing in the dirt, still connected to its mother by the umbilical cord.
And this was the last frame.
Still choking, Abbie kept moving backward. Her feet tangled. She went down, fresh pain rocketing through her. At her garbled cry, Cal swung his head toward her. Black ooze rimmed his eyes and nostrils. The corners of his mouth. When his lips pulled back in what was too horrific an expression to be a smile, she saw the same black goo
encrusted on his teeth and tongue. He coughed again and spat to the side.
It seemed impossible that he could focus on her, but he did. His gaze found hers, pinning her as her pain immobilized her on the ground. Abbie tried to draw in a breath, then another, but the fall had knocked her lungs so empty all she could do was writhe on the ground and wait for him to grab her.
He swung at her, fingertips skimming the front of her shirt and catching in the fabric just enough to tug her upward for a second before he lost his grip. Abbie crab-walked backwards, pushing with her elbows and not her hands because the pain in her broken wrist made it impossible to put pressure on it. Cal swung again, leaning so far forward it looked like he’d easily overbalance and fall on top of her, but he managed to keep his feet.
Behind him, the ruin that had been Tony shambled forward a few steps before his knees buckled and he went to the ground, face first next to Marnie. He scrabbled for her in the dirt and found the body of the still-screaming infant. Marnie herself had barely moved. Blood coursed from the mess of her guts; her fingers dabbled in shredded flesh like she was trying to shove the pieces of herself that had come out back in.
Above her, Cal coughed and spat. Spat again. A glob of nasty black spittle hit the grass next to Abbie’s shoulder. Cringing, she shoved herself backward again, digging with her heels and leaving gouges in the dirt. She got a few inches away from him, far enough that when he grabbed for her again she was able to kick his hand away.
Cal stood. His mouth worked. A sound emerged, something like her name on a whispered hiss. At last she was able to take a full breath, her damaged lungs working hard to get enough oxygen to her body. Abbie pushed herself again, this time rolling onto her knees and using her uninjured arm to prop herself up far enough so she could get to her feet.
She ran for the car.
The keys. Had Cal taken them? Put them in his pocket? Abbie yanked the door open as she looked over her shoulder, already imagining how she’d fight him for them if that were the case. But no, they dangled from the ignition, and she slid into the driver’s seat with a breathy cry of pain when she tried to grip the steering wheel with her bad hand.