by Barr, Jeff
Arneson settled back, keeping his peripheral vision open in case anyone tried to sneak from behind. He kicked a cloud of dirt at Pry Bar, and used the distraction to dip into his jacket and pull out his knife.
Pry Bar lunged, swinging, and Arneson danced back, feeling the iron bar swat the ends of his leather jacket. He had a moment to decide if he should reach in to the sudden gap Pry bar had opened. One clean, shallow stick would stop him, but it was too easy to nick a lung and leave him lying in the dirt, choking on his own blood. Too late, Arneson's chance passed. He was hemmed in from the back, too close for another jump back. If Pry Bar kept coming, Arneson would have no choice but to cut him, just to back him off. And here he came. Arneson got ready.
The boom of a shotgun froze everyone in place. The only sound in the sudde quiet was the growl of the dog, the sobs of the girl in the ring, and the groan of the man on the ground.
A mountainous man in denim coveralls strode through the crowd toward Arneson like a giant walking through a cane-field. The people parted for him, whispering and murmuring.
"Cut the shit, Markey." The big man's voice was a basso profondo that rumbled up from somewhere in his impressive gut. Pry Bar backed off a step, glaring malevolently. "Looks like you caught one in the marbles, Bodie; go put an icepack on it." Bodie, still holding his balls, tottered to his feet and stumped off, aiming an almost childlike look of dislike at Arneson.
"So. More of them Skungers, are ya," the big man said.
"Are you asking us or telling us?" Sugar said. She tipped her chin up defiantly, a gesture Arneson knew well, her head level with his solar plexus.
"Well, that was a rhetorical question, which don't require a question mark. That's why you don't hear the uptalk at the end."
"Well." Sugar, momentarily nonplussed, put her hands on her hips and glared up at the big man. "What are you, the redneck Noam Chomsky?"
"The name's Bracken, and I liked that Hegemony or Survival quite a little bit, thank ya. Now just what the hell is going on here?"
Sugar blinked.
Arneson stepped forward. "Look, Bracken. We stopped for gas, we didn't mean to get into the middle of…whatever this is."
"And yet here you are, just the same."
"But we can walk away. You go back to what you were doing, and we do the same."
Bracken contemplated him. "Suppose I don't believe you?" He looked around, eyeing the expectant, dirty faces. "You look like a do-gooder to me. If there's one thing I can't stand, it's a do-gooder."
Arneson pitched his voice low, speaking just to Bracken. "Let us go. There's nothing to prove here. You can save yourself a lot of trouble—"
Sugar cleared her throat and both men looked at her. "Sorry to interrupt your little male pow-wow, but it isn't that easy. You're going to let that little girl go. And I," she crossed her arms, "am not going anywhere until you do." Her pulse jumped in her throat, her face red with fury. The Skunge roiled beneath her skin.
Bracken considered her, his face grave.
"Well, now, little lady, I'm afraid I can't allow that." He tipped his head toward them, and another group of man stalked forward and surrounded them. Scowling unshaven faces, mean and rolling eyes.
"I'm warning you," Sugar said. Her hands clenched and unclenched spasmodically. She stepped close to him with no fear on her face, only stony anger. "And you only get one warning."
Bracken chuckled and motioned behind him. "Markey, go and kill that Skunger slut." Markey moved to obey, exposing the rotten, leaning stumps of his teeth in a grin. Bracken lowered the shotgun slowly, letting Sugar's eyes follow the twin black mouths of the barrel as it lowered toward her. "We don't care much for Skungers here, and we are going to kill every last one of them in this town. Now what," he growled, as the barrel of the shotgun touched her forehead with a tiny thunk, "do you intend to do about it?"
There was a beat of silence, and then Skunge exploded from Sugar like a bursting seedpod. Dozens of whipping thorny tentacles burst from her flesh as rolled bundles of wet, threaded Skunge lifted around her like a cobra opening its hood. A long ribbon of it rocketed from her mouth, grabbed the barrel of the shotgun, and whipped it around into Bracken's surprised face. Before he could react, another strand of Skunge lanced out, took hold of his hand where his fingers rested on the trigger, and pulled.
Bracken's head exploded sending gobbets of brain, blood, and bone flying into the air. Teeth flew like shrapnel, and a murder of crows leapt from a nearby telephone wire, their angry caws lost in the echoes of the blast.
The roar of the shotgun was like a bomb going off next to Arneson's head. His eyes went looping and unfocused, and his ears felt stuffed with steel wool. He felt something drip down the side of his neck and decided it was blood from a ruptured eardrum. He flailed his arms, trying to keep his balance, and Sugar's arm was there, cool and solid. The Skunge wrapped around his hand, threading through his fingers, tightened for a heart-stopping moment, then relaxed.
Bracken's mighty carcass began to waver, and then began to fall. The shotgun fell from his dead fingers, and hit the ground at the same time as his headless body. He hit the dust like a fallen deity.
CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN
The crowd sighed, like Sugar had performed a particularly impressive magic trick.
The a single voice, cracked with emotion, cried out. "Bracken!" Soon the cry was joined, as others raised their voices. A tide of rage surged around them. "Kill these Goddamn Skungers!" The voices swirled around them like a whirlwind.
Arneson grabbed the shotgun from the ground and pointed it at anyone who ventured too close. He settled into a quick-fire position, weight on his back leg, arms loose and bent at forty-five degree angles. Sugar glowered, projecting an aura of bull-like hatred, the Skunge pulling in to wrap around her limbs.
Arneson's voice took on a booming authoritative tone. "People, I am an agent of the United States government. Back off and lower your weapons." He sounded like a cop, looked like what a lot of them might imagine a representative of the evil overlords to look like, and he moved like he knew how to use a gun. Whichever factor convinced the crowd, they began to back off, their cries bubbling down into a seafoam of murmurs.
Sugar stalked toward the ring. Arneson followed, walking backward, sweeping back and forth with the gun. The crowd gave way with grudging respect, but not an inch more than what was required. Tension hung in the air like invisible gas, waiting for a spark to ignite.
Just before they reached the ring, a scuffle broke out. It was the hard-faced blond woman, struggling with the Skunger girl. The girl babbled, sobbing, while the woman screamed in her face. The women held a small-caliber pistol.
"I hate you! I wish I'd never been born!" The Skunger cried. Her sobs were blurred but distinguishable through the mat of Skunge that hid her face.
"I fucking despise you," the woman hissed, her face twisted into a mask. "I wish your father had killed you instead of just fucking you!"
"He didn't fuck me, he raped me! Why can't you understand that? Why won't you believe me?" The girl lunged and grabbed for the gun.
She ripped the gun from the blond woman's hand and leveled it at her mother. Her hand shook with suppressed rage. The crowd held its breath.
There was a crackling boom from somewhere above, and the girl's chest exploded. Skunge flew. The blond woman screamed, a high piercing noise like a klaxon. The crowd tattered like smoke in the wind, streaming in every direction.
Arneson spun, clocking a silhouette on the roof of the gas station. The tell-tale triangle shape of a sharpshooter.
No no no. Arneson knelt in the dirt, trying to steady his hands to get a shot off. At this range, with a pistol, the shot was almost impossible. Don't you do it, you bastard. Don't you dare.
But he was too late. The sharpshooter took aim again, and fired. Sugar spun, gasping in pain, eyes wide with shock.
Arneson fired. Missed. Fired again. The shooter jerked, knees unlocking, and tumbled out of sight.
Arneson ran to Sugar. He had enough time to register that the girl in the ring was dead, laying faceup, eyes wide and staring, the bullet-hole in her chest still smoking. The bullet had entered directly over her heart, and exited in a gory splash out of her back.
Sugar was dragging herself, bleeding, through the dirt, toward the girl. Arneson lunged to catch hold of Sugar's leg and missed by inches. Sugar crawled on.
"Sugar, stop," he hissed. "We have to go. These people are going to kill us."
Sugar said nothing. With a last convulsive lunge, she dropped to the dust beside the Skunger girl. She leaned over the girl, their faces close together, as if she had a secret to tell.
"Sugar, we can't help her. She's dead." He rested his palm on the back of Sugar's neck.
Sugar reached for the girl. Just before her fingers touched, a bloodless mouth opened at the tip of one finger, and a ribbon of the Skunge reached out to touch the girl, probing and delicate. It twined itself around growths of the Skunge, and shiver seemed to pass through it.
The girl twitched. A wave of cool washed over Arneson as the corpse began to spasm. The girl's body moved like she was being electrocuted. Her limbs drummed against the ground. Then the dead girl scrambled to her hands and knees. She crab-crawled away so quickly it was like a skipping reel of film. She panted, her staring blue eye cutting back and forth between them.
"Sugar," Arneson said. "We have to go. Now."
The crowd was reappearing in blocks of two or three, from all directions. Right now, they only eyed the couple and muttered, but Arneson knew what would come next. The mutters would turn to taunts, jeers, and finally threats. The threats would escalate until someone among them decided to lead the charge. By then, it would be too late to leave. Emboldened by the blood still in the air, they would tear Sugar apart.
Arneson picked up the shotgun and ratcheted the slide. Hatred warred with fear across the faces of the townspeople. They stayed back.
"Tessa?" It was the hard-faced blond woman. She crept forward like a whipped dog, whisper to the Skunger girl. "Tessa, angel, I'm so sorry." She crawled to her daughter, and took her overgrown hand between two of her own. Tessa's eye stared out of the Skunge, betraying nothing.
The whispering started, rolling in like waves. Soon it would build. Arneson pointed the shotgun with one hand, leading Sugar with the other. They left that place, watching for any move toward them.
In the end, it was almost anticlimactic. No one moved as they walked out, leaving a trail of blood behind them.
CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT
The Skunge squirmed under her skin, dark patterns delicate as spiderwebs. She moaned in her sleep, face drawn and older in the green light of the dash. Arneson read every line of her face, memorizing it.
Maybe this is a dream, he thought. Maybe I died in the firefight at Maas' place. Caught a stray bullet in the head, and now I'm floating in the ether. He looked at Sugar as she slept. Maybe we're both dreaming.
He had patched her up, field-style. The wound in her shoulder had been superficial; nothing more than a triangular chunk of meat ripped out by the sniper's bullet. He'd given her pills for the pain, which she claimed not to feel at all. When he cut away the cloth of her shirt to expose her bloodied arm, the wound was already healing, the flesh knitting itself together with strands of the Skunge. When he'd opened his mouth to ask her about it, her eyes opened, and he'd nearly screamed. Her eyes had turned colorless. From her vibrant green to a washed-out nothing, the shade of old bottles left to fade in the sun. Nothing human remained in those eyes. He'd been glad when her eyes had closed. He drove north, hands shaking on the wheel.
The Jeep ate up the miles.
He stopped for gas in a town that was little more than a few scattered houses buried in the looming pines that encroached the highway on both sides.
Before Arneson could climb out, an older man shuffled out of the station to stand at the driver's side window.
"Whatcherwant." The attendant was older than you'd expect; probably in his mid fifties with a cadaverous, vaguely simian aspect. He dug in one ear while scowling into the cab of the Jeep. Must be the owner, Arneson mused; the hired help would at least try not to be such an asshole.
"Fill it up. And try and be quiet, my girl's sleeping."
"Good for her. Where you headed to?"
"North."
The attendant eyed him like Arneson was something he had dug out of his ear. Sugar slept against the passenger window while Arneson went in to see how bad the coffee was. Inside, the TV blared: cities rioting, fires burning in the streets, martial law declared on the west coast, and morose public servants broadcasting ersatz sad faces via safe and secure remote feeds. President Thornton called for the American public to remain calm, and the American public had responded with a hearty screw you, Jack. The riots burned at airports, the quarantine checkpoints, the hospitals, the schools. Canada and Mexico had shuttered their borders, pending 'further review of the situation'.
The store smelled like spoiled milk and old motor oil. The coffee turned out to be worse than even he had expected. He sipped from it, pulled a face, and took another sip. Maybe it will grow on me. Get it, grow on me? Ha ha, you slay me. Arneson scratched moodily at the back of his neck and tried to yank out the thin wire of Skunge he found. It retreated, drawing a burning wire of pain back down into his skin. He looked outside and saw the attendant standing by the side of the jeep, arms crossed, waiting for the tank to fill up. He browsed the shelves, picked up beef jerky and cookies, a couple of sodas. His eyes ached from the strain of driving. He looked for a magazine to give Sugar something to read, but unless she had developed a taste for Field & Stream or Deer Hunter XTreme—which sounded like some marketroid's plan to sell green soda—then she was out of luck. The bell jingled as the owner came back into the store.
"Hey, buddy, where do you keep the headache stuff?" Arneson said. No answer. He turned and found himself facing the sawed-off end of a 12-gauge Mossberg shotgun. The owner had tipped back his smudged orange cap, and the harsh light of the overhead fluorescents made him look like a reanimated corpse. His name tag said BILL.
"Get the fuck back in your car and get gone. I don't want you in here."
"Take it easy, Bill. I'll pay, you unlock the pump, I'll get my gas and leave."
"No. Get going now." A tremor ran through his hands, and a bead of sweat rolled down the side of his unshaven face. "If I don't see your tail-lights heading down that road in thirty seconds, you're dogmeat."
"I'm not leaving without my Funyuns," Arneson said. He kept his hands down and loose. "Can't have a road trip without them, right?"
"What the fuck're you talking about? I told you, get out—"
Arneson took a brisk step forward, thrusting the palm of his right hand, not aiming for the barrel of the gun, but for the center of the man's body. His palm clapped over the clerk's hand where it gripped the slide, and Arneson's forward momentum pinned the gun against Bill's body. When the old man pulled away, trying to wrest back the gun, Arneson stepped forward again and sent a fast rising fist under his chin. Bill collapsed like a straw dummy, leaving Arneson holding the shotgun.
"You should have just sold me the Funyuns." He stared down at Bill, and a wave of unreasoning rage crashed over him like a breaker. He found himself wondering what it would be like to stomp Bill's face into strawberry jelly. He turned the thought over in his mind, savoring it. Satisfying—that's how it would feel. Like a hungry man stumbling on a turkey dinner, or a drunk knocking back the first drink of the day. The sheer, exhilarating joy he would feel when he brought down his boot—or better yet, the stock of the Mossberg—and pounded away until the man's skull cracked like an eggshell, spilling out those juicy, bloody brains. He could write his name in the blood and meningeal fluid. And he would laugh while he did it.
He placed the butt of the shotgun on the man's face, and pushed. The skin there bunched up, turning red. Arneson felt the Skunge uncurling in the dark centers of his
body, reaching for the surface like tropical plants unfurling to drink the rain. A shock of delicious pleasure ran through his body, and he pushed harder. His senses lit up; he could see every single whisker on the man's stubbled chin, could hear the minute crackling of the bones in the man's face as he leaned his weight on the gun.
The bell over the door jangled again, and a lanky boy of about twelve walked in, holding a grease-spotted brown-paper bag. Lunch time for Bill. The boy stopped, eyes wide, and dropped the bag. Arneson and the boy regarded each other in the cold white light.
"Mister, is my dad dead?"
Not yet, but give me a minute, kid, Arneson thought, then shook his head like a dog coming up from cold water. Hold it together, man. If you could hold it together in Mainstake, you can sure as fuck hold it together here.
He let off on the shotgun, his skin suddenly cold. Had he been ready to kill this guy?
"You're fucking losing it, man." The shaky sound of his own voice was shocking in the store's humming stillness. The kid said nothing, but his eyes spoke, broadcasting on an urgent frequency. Arneson bent and set the shotgun down, his eyes locked on the kid's. He checked the man's pulse. Then, hands still raised, he stood and moved past the boy to the front door. The kid didn't back off an inch, and Arneson admired him for that. As soon as Arneson was at the door, the boy broke and rushed to his dad's side.
"He'll be OK. Call an ambulance, though—he might have hit his head on the way down."
The kid spoke with quiet dignity. "We don't have insurance. Dad would skin me if I called for one."
"Is there anyone you can call?" Arneson hung there, hating himself, wanting to try and help in the hope of erasing what he had done. He felt the kid's gaze like dusty stones on his skin, and in that moment he knew that the past was distant and immutable, and could never be undone. No amount of I-wish-I-hadn't or please-forgive-me would change the things he'd done. They were as much him as his bones.