“You all right, Grade?”
I cringed again. “Y-yeah, I’m all right.” I pointed to the unused room across from me. “Is this where we’ll be staying?”
“If you’d like. I’ll definitely have to reinforce the bars on the windows before—”
“I can do it, no problem.”
“Good. Thank you, Grade. But with the wraiths, as you call them—I just call them sons of bitches, excuse my French—acting the way they’ve been acting, maybe we need to all stick together in the same place.”
“As long as we have someone on watch at all times, I think we’ll be fine.”
“Maybe,” Bob said. “Or perhaps we could stay in the living room?”
The idea of being surrounded by all those weird clocks didn’t sit well with me. Some of them had abstract faces on them, slitted eyes, disproportioned noses and mouths and large teeth. They were like the demented funhouse version of the way a clock was supposed to be, and frankly, they gave me the heebie-jeebies.
Underneath that was a more immediate fear of Bob, though I refused to outright admit it to myself.
If he had evil plans in store, he’d want to separate us, pick us off one by one, right? We might’ve been an odd group of survivors—a half-handicapped dude, a pregnant chick, a girl recovering from a head injury, a teenager, a dog with fishbowl eyes and a tendency to stick out his bottom teeth in a crooked smile, and me, the firefighter who was scared of…fire—but we outnumbered Bob six to one if you counted Chewy, and I did because beneath that scruffy beard were a couple of long and sharp canines that could cut deep.
Bob would have to be crazy to want to mess with us.
But what if he is?
“Grady!” Ell called from the living room. “Hurry up!”
“Momma needs her medicine!” Stone added.
“Don’t call me ‘momma’, you freak!”
Bob chuckled, the sound lacked even a hint of humor.
I smiled awkwardly. “Better grab the wine…”
Bob slapped me on the back of one arm. “Well then, hurry up, pal!” He gave me a shove down the way I had come (though the strength behind it made it anything but friendly), and I was stumbling back toward the living room.
I turned around, expecting to see Bob there with his hands on his hips, smiling like a serial killer, but he was moving toward the bathroom. The door closed behind him a few seconds after.
It was only later that I replayed his walk in my head. How he stepped on his bad leg as if there was no pain there at all. If you’ve ever suffered a puncture wound injury—I don’t care if it was a knife, a huge icicle, or a splinter—then you know how once you pull it out relief immediately floods your body. Still, after a few hours’ time, the injured part becomes sore as hell.
Bob showed no sign of soreness, almost no sign his leg had been skewered at all. Maybe he really did possess a superhuman pain tolerance, or—and I hoped for this to be the explanation more than I believed it—maybe he had some pain meds he was holding out on us.
If there was a third, more sinister option, my brain refused to acknowledge it.
“I’m getting the stuff,” I shouted toward the living room.
I found the garage pretty easily, grabbed the wine, and started for the house again. I stopped abruptly and went back to the snowmobile. Not to flee. No, to get through this, I’d need something a little stronger than wine.
I’d need a couple of candy bars.
Bob had a generator, but it paled in comparison to the one at Helga’s lake house. His place was too big and would take too much fuel to heat it, anyway.
We huddled around the hearth, drinking up the warmth with glasses of chilled wine in our hands. With the proper ventilation system, it was nice not having to inhale a bunch of smoke like we had in the gas station with our bucket fire. My lungs were probably as dark as the sky at this point. Oh well, I was alive.
But I wouldn’t say I was completely at peace, not the way I had been at Helga’s, and not even close to the way I’d felt when the world was normal, but this was a step in the right direction. Instead of going backwards, we were going forward. Bob was weird, so what? He at least gave us what we needed, and that was worth the weirdness. Things had an excellent chance of picking up for us, I thought, and that was good.
As the sunlight inevitably waned a few hours or so after we settled into Bob’s house and a forced night strangled the world again, we drank and we drank. Stone, Ell, and I, that is. Mikey had a few sips here and there, with Ell’s permission, but he said he didn’t like the taste much. Of course, Mia couldn’t have any and she sulked because of this.
We dined on frozen waffles heated on a skillet over the fire. No syrup, but that was okay. Throughout the meal, we talked.
Bob did most of the talking, however. When one of us got rolling, he’d interrupt and steer the conversation to a subject he was more knowledgeable about. No one minded, at least not that I could tell, but it irked me to no end. Right when I would steel myself to speak up about it, the calm voice in my head told me to relax. Like everything else, I was blowing it out of proportion, making something small big.
I noticed he barely touched his food. I didn’t think he noticed me noticing, but he explained himself regardless.
“Never was a fan of Eggo. At least with syrup they’re manageable. I’d pop out and grab some if the light was out.” He shrugged. “The wraiths don’t really come here, anyway. I know you guys were attacked in the motel—Mikey told me—but I can count how many I’ve seen since they tore through town at the beginning on one hand.”
Ell, slurring her words a bit, said, “Really? That’s great.”
“Yep. I’m not worth the trouble to them, I think, and I’m completely okay with that. Doesn’t mean we can go gallivanting in the dark, but I feel safe here in the sticks.”
“This ain’t the sticks,” Mia said. “I know the sticks.”
“Well, tell that to our neighbors in Northington,” Bob replied with a chuckle, an obvious Woodhaven inside joke none of us were privy to. If all the citizens of Woodhaven were in fact dead, did it still count as an inside joke without anyone quote-unquote inside to share it with?
“I know the sticks too,” Ell said. “Grady’s stick.” She suddenly reached down and squeezed me below the belt. I nearly jumped out of my skin, more embarrassed than shocked.
Mikey, sitting across from us and next to Mia, doubled over and made a sound like he was hacking up a hairball.
“Okay, okay,” I said, standing up. Eleanor rose with me, mostly because she was hanging on my arm. “You’re cut off, sweetheart.”
Mikey continued his fake hacking.
Ell collapsed to her knees on the carpet and began rubbing Chewy’s belly. “It was just a joke. Chill. You got the joke, didn’t you, Chewy? Yes, you did! Yes, you did!”
Stone leaned over and whispered to Bob, “Sorry about her. She doesn’t know how to handle her liquor.” He signed a pair of scissors with his index and middle fingers. Cut her off.
“And you do?” Ell said, gasping like a B-movie actress.
There wasn’t much left, but I took the wine into the kitchen and hid it in one of the cabinets.
“Better than you, yeah,” Stone said.
“Drinking contest!” Mikey shouted as I came back and sat on the couch. “Please, anything to get what Ell said out of my head.”
“Might have to get a whatchamacallit,” Mia said, imitating a power drill at her temple.
“Lobotomy,” Stone said.
“That’s it!” Mia said. “Lobotomy. I could give you one, but I might have to use a…stick.”
“I don’t appreciate that reference,” Mikey said.
“Me either,” I said.
“Jesus, guys. Keep Grady’s stick out of your mouth!” Stone hollered before doubling over with laughter.
Eleanor thought the whole exchange was hilarious. Had we not been guests of Bob’s, I might’ve. Luckily, however, when I glanced at Bob, h
e was grinning.
“You all are too much,” he said. “But man, it’s good to have genuine laughs bouncing off these old walls again.”
Things settled down a bit after that. A few more hours passed. I guessed it was somewhere in the early afternoon, but swollen darkness hung in the sky, making it feel more like midnight. We were all a little sleepy from the food and the wine. Bob offered us coffee, but only Ell had some and it seemed to help sober her up a bit. She kept rubbing the spot she’d busted open in the snowmobile accident at Avery’s Mills.
Mia passed out on the couch fifteen or so minutes later. Mikey tried to get her somewhere more comfortable because she looked wildly uncomfortable, but when she rested her head on one of his shoulders he shut up, afraid to ruin the moment. I suppose you’d call what he felt for Mia “puppy love” or a “crush,” but it was stronger than that. Not love-love, but not far from it either.
Stone excused himself to one of the spare bedrooms, to which Bob gave no objection. Only told him to double-check the window barricades. This was another good sign, I thought. Maybe the logical voice in my mind was right.
This just left Ell, Mikey, Bob, and me—Chewy, despite his initial wariness of Bob, was no match for Ell’s warm lap and was snoring almost as mightily as Mia.
I cleared my throat and focused on one of the few clocks I actually liked. It was in the shape of a crater-pocked moon. A rocket ship with USA stenciled down its side hovered somewhere between twelve and one. I appreciated its attention to detail. Hell, I might even call it a work of art. How much would it sell for if the shit had never hit the fan? Would Bob’s dad have made a profit on it? These were the thoughts racing through my mind at the…ha-ha…time because I didn’t want to make small talk.
It’s funny, I remember thinking not long before then that I’d give anything to talk small with the cashier at a supermarket or some fella I held the door open for while we both entered the bank lobby. Those thoughts hadn’t changed, not really.
It was just Bob. I didn’t want to talk small with Bobby Ballard.
So, instead of small, we talked big.
“I think I need to tell you guys how it all went to hell, if you don’t mind. Therapists aren’t around anymore, and I gotta get this off my chest.”
Whether I wanted to listen or not, Ell was nodding intensely, and I couldn’t leave her and Mikey alone with him, could I?
Bob began: “The worst of it started two days after the Fourth, on July 6th.”
Bob rolled up one of his sleeves. His forearms were tanned, hairy, and dotted with the occasional freckle. Despite the absence of the sun, most of his skin looked healthy, as if he had enough vitamin D stored to last him through the actual winter. There was just one spot that didn’t look so good. A few inches below his wrist ran a pale pink-white line. The sight of it made my stomach clench, but I didn’t look away.
“See that?” he said, pointing to the wound. “That was from Ruth down the street. Happened the morning of July 6th. I was out shoveling my walkway.” He waved a hand. “Useless thing back then, shoveling. Didn’t matter how fast I went, as soon as I flung snow to the side, enough had fallen to take its place. I just about threw my back out trying.”
“I can imagine,” Ell moaned, rubbing her tailbone.
“I’m all right now, Eleanor. Thank you.”
I wondered how part of his drive and the path we’d taken to the house was cleared if he was having back problems when the snow first fell. That was a lot of work, keeping up with it. Back problems waited for nothing and no one. On the cusp of thirty, some may call me a young man, but after a twelve-hour shift at the firehouse on a particularly busy night, I couldn’t grab a couple of Advil and lie on the heating pad fast enough.
But, like everything else I’d wondered about Bob, he gave an answer to a question that hadn’t yet left my mind.
“The snowblower I borrowed from my next door neighbor, God rest his soul, is the reason I’ve been able to hang with the storms. For the most part. There isn’t much of anything else to do, is there? I guess, like this story I’m telling you, keeping the driveway—and my head—clear is sort of a release for me.”
I relaxed, but only on the outside. The optimistic interior voice hadn’t turned on Bob yet, but it was getting close. It reasoned like a victim.
People have back problems, people healed, some healed faster than others, some have different levels of pain tolerance, big houses have rarely used spare rooms—yada-yada-yada.
“Back to this,” Bob said, pointing at the soon-to-be scar on his arm. “I was out there shoveling the drive when Ruth Tucker came walking up the path I’d cleared. She moved slow, like a pallbearer carrying a casket by herself, and her head was tilted so I could only see a bit of her eyes. A vertical black line ran down her brow. I thought it was smudged makeup or something. My ex-wife, she’d forget she was wearing the stuff and go jogging or watch a sad romance movie or something like that, and then she’d wipe her eyes and smear it all over the place. Messy business, that makeup stuff!
“So that’s what I thought was on Ruth’s face. I waved a hand at her and I says, ‘Hey, Ruth! This is crazy, isn’t it?’ and she said nothing, just kept on walking. The snow was falling hard, but my stupid brain hadn’t really comprehended it at that point. Guess I was still stuck in summer mode, because the fact Ruth was wearing jean capris and a sleeveless blouse seemed normal until a gust of chilly wind nearly knocked me off my feet. All of a sudden Ruth pulled out a knife about as big as my shoe and sprinted my way. I wasn’t prepared for it, and even if I had been, I don’t think I woulda stood much of a chance. Luckily, I didn’t have one of those cheap plastic shovels you get at the grocery store. No, mine was steel, heavy, and well-made. I paid a pretty penny for it too. I blocked Ruth’s first slash, but missed the second, and she cut me here.” Bob closed his eyes and shook his head slowly. “Talk about a wakeup call.”
“Wow,” Eleanor said, leaning forward.
“I was lucky I escaped with just a scratch. Ruth couldn’t have weighed more than a buck-fifteen soaking wet, but she bowled me over like she was a professional linebacker. She would’ve slit my throat if I hadn’t defended myself.”
I didn’t want to ask my next question because I didn’t want to know the answer. I asked anyway.
“Did you kill her?”
“Grady!” Ell gasped. The sudden sound made Mia shift, and Mikey, who I had noticed was dozing himself, rolled away from her and curled up into a ball.
“What? It’s a fair question.”
Bob nodded. “It is a fair question, and I don’t mind answering, especially because I didn’t kill Ruth… She died when those things left that black stain on her forehead.” He paused long enough to flash a grin. “So, I guess that means she was already dead when I bashed her head in with the shovel.”
Ell went rigid. Her hand found mine and squeezed painfully hard. A chill, colder than the wind, crept down my spine as Bob’s words dug their claws deeper into my brain. These were the words of a man who held no qualms about killing. They were the words of a man who had killed before and would kill again.
Here we were, trapped in the den of the lion, waiting to be devoured.
“I’m joking!” Bob suddenly said. “I pushed Ruthie away and ran inside the house. She left me alone a few minutes later.” He laughed, slapped his knee. “You’d really think I’d kill my own neighbor? Oh c’mon, you should’ve seen your faces!”
Eleanor relaxed; I didn’t. I couldn’t tell if he was lying or just had a sick sense of humor. Either way, I wanted to be anywhere but there.
“Well I’m glad you’re all right.” Ell pointed to his thigh. “How’s your leg?”
Bob rapped it with a knuckle. “Pretty damn fine. Popped a couple of aspirin when we got here, and now I do feel like I could run a marathon.”
I eyed him warily.
“Just a flesh wound, I guess. Nastier than it looked.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know…
it looked pretty nasty.”
“It did,” Ell agreed.
“I’ve had worse,” Bob said. I knew another story was on the horizon even before his lips started moving. He then launched into a long, rambling rant about the time he got a six-inch splinter embedded in his eye.
“I’ll tell ya, it was a miracle I didn’t go blind!”
This also sounded like a lie, but I kept silent about my suspicions.
“Maybe you’re just a lucky guy,” I said.
“Yeah, maybe.”
“Or God’s watching over you.”
Another grin. He looked up at the many clocks on the wall. “Yeah, I think someone’s definitely watching out for me.”
“By July 6th, I’d guess half the town’s population was gone. They had either lit out for better climes or had been devoured by those things,” Bob was saying.
“Is that what they do? Devour?” Eleanor asked. She hugged her knees to her chest, the empty coffee mug resting between her legs.
We didn’t know what the wraiths did. Not specifically, but it wasn’t anything good.
“Yes, ma’am,” Bob answered. “I think that’s what they do. They devour.”
“Our flesh?” I asked, thinking about Mia’s gutted ex-boyfriend lying in the snow at Avery’s Mills. The wolves did that, right? Not the monsters. Only…now I wasn’t so sure because Bob sounded like he knew what he was talking about.
I sensed another story with a personal experience on the horizon. If so, that was definitely one I didn’t want to hear.
Bob laughed, shaking his head. “No, not flesh.”
I let out the breath I was holding, and hoped neither Ell or Bob noticed.
Ell certainly hadn’t. She leaned forward, eyes ballooning, and asked, “Then what do they eat?”
“Our fear. Our pain. Our suffering.” Bob shrugged. “Basically, our negative emotions. It keeps them going.”
Whiteout (Book 3): The Numbing Page 10