by Ronald Malfi
He went out through the back porch, descended the few steps, and walked backward through the tall, colorless grass. He was looking up toward the peaked roof, at the peeling black shingles and the clumps of bright green moss. There was the bedroom window, partially opened.
And then he saw it: a sleek black bird with oily feathers perched on the cusp of the eave. It was a blackbird, a raven, with oil-spot eyes and a tapered beak like the blade of a pocketknife. As David stared at it in disbelief, the bird cocked its head so that one of its eyes focused on him. It unleashed a shrill caw, then cranked open its wings. Its feathers were so black and slick and iridescent, they were practically blue.
He took another step backward, unable to pull his gaze from the bird.
The bird cawed a second time, the sound of its cry echoing out over the valley, and then its wings began to flap. It lifted off the roof and coasted clear across the field, cutting over David’s head, its shadow passing quickly over his face.
He found himself laughing at the sight of the creature.
He followed it with his eyes as it darted over the field and vanished among the branches of the nearest trees.
A figure stood in the middle of the field. It was a man, and he was wearing the same mask that he’d worn when David had first glimpsed him in the library in Missouri, then in the field beyond the burger joint in Kansas, and then later at Funluck Park in Colorado.
The figure did not move; he simply stood there, the broad shoulders silvered with early morning daylight, the querying cock of his head reminiscent of a curious dog. The blank white mask had been outfitted with eyeholes that resembled empty sockets in a skull.
It took David a moment to find his voice. Once he did, he managed to eke out, “Who are you?”
The figure said nothing. The head cranked toward one shoulder incrementally, the movement that of a somnambulist.
David took a step toward the figure.
“Who are you? What are you doing here? What do you want?”
The figure reached up and removed the mask, revealing a round and doughy face reddened by the sun and glistening with perspiration. The top of the head was hairless and shiny, like a globe slickened with petroleum jelly.
It was Burt Langstrom.
62
Six days earlier
Something inside him—some animal instinct—caused him to slow almost to a stop at the top of their street. Everything was as it should be—the soft lights in the windows of his neighbors’ houses, the radiant white glow of the street lamps, the cars parked silently in driveways—but he was overcome with such apprehension that he began to clench his jaw. At the far end of Columbus Court, the white van was still parked against the curb, just as it had been for the past several nights. He had inquired about the van to some of his neighbors, but no one had claimed it, nor had they any idea to whom it belonged.
But he knew. How he hadn’t pieced it together sooner, he had no idea. He’d seen this van parked here every morning when he departed for the hospital to be with Kathy . . . and he’d seen its counterparts parked in the CDC parking lot in Greenbelt among those dark, pantherlike sedans with the government plates.
His gaze flicked over toward Ellie, who had fallen asleep in the backseat.
Is this really happening? Or am I caught in the middle of some terrible dream?
He reversed, spinning the steering wheel, then pulled back out onto the main road. He headed north toward the highway, but in truth, he had no real destination in mind. As it turned out, he drove around for a good thirty-five minutes with no game plan whatsoever while continuing to check his mirrors to see if the white van—or maybe a whole cadre of those sleek black sedans—followed him. It wasn’t until he passed the RV rental place off the highway that he thought of Burt Langstrom, and of Burt’s empty house and abandoned car. It was an Oldsmobile, if he remembered correctly.
* * *
The Langstrom house was dark, all lights off. In fact, the entire street was dark, with all the streetlights blown out and very few lights on in the neighboring windows. The Olds wasn’t in the driveway, and for a second, David felt a sinking in his gut. But unlike his own house, the Langstroms’ place had a garage, so he might still be in luck.
He shut the Bronco’s headlights but kept the engine running. Turning around in his seat, he watched Ellie sleep for a few seconds while he contemplated waking her. In the end, he thought it best to leave her be and hope she didn’t wake up to find him gone, their truck parked in front of some stranger’s house. He would just have to be quick.
He got out, careful not to make any noise closing the door, and hurried around the side of the house. He didn’t bother with the front door, opting instead to try the back door. There was a sliding-glass door off the back deck, if he remembered correctly. He didn’t think Burt would have left it unlocked, even if he never planned to return to this place, but it was worth a shot. And if it was locked, well, he’d just have to be real quiet breaking in.
The door was unlocked.
He tugged it open, the rollers squealing, and hurried inside.
There was a panel of light switches on the opposite wall, but the room extended into another that faced the front of the house, and he did not want to turn on any lights that could be seen from the street. Instead, he crept through the darkened hallway in the approximate direction of the garage. He opened one door to find it was a closet chock-full of fall jackets and winter coats. The next door opened up on a black cave, the air rich with the smell of motor oil. When David turned on the light switch, he saw the Oldsmobile right there, shiny beneath the light of the mechanized garage door opener.
Keys.
He scoured the front hall, a credenza, the hall closet, every single drawer in the kitchen, but he couldn’t find the car keys.
Maybe Burt took them with him.
Yet he’d left the back door unlocked . . .
Maybe there’s a spare somewhere.
He went back out into the hall and glanced up the flight of stairs to the second floor. It was like looking up at the bridge of a ghost ship sliding off in misty waters.
The steps creaked as he ascended. The handrail felt cold. He’d never been upstairs in the Langstroms’ house before, but he surmised that the master bedroom was at the far end of the hall, so he went there. The only other place he thought he might find the car keys was in the bedroom, perhaps in the drawer of a nightstand or maybe atop a dresser or bureau.
The bedroom door was closed. He eased it open, then felt around the wall for the light switch. This side of the house faced the backyard, which was mostly concealed from the neighbors by large Douglas firs along three quarters of the perimeter.
The lights came on.
David froze in the doorway.
In that instant, he knew exactly what he was seeing, yet it took his brain a few seconds to catch up.
They were all laid out on the large king-size bed—father, mother, both daughters. Three of them had been configured to suggest peacefulness, with their hands folded neatly atop their abdomens—a grotesque juxtaposition to the bullet holes in the center of their foreheads. The final figure—Burt himself—was the only one caught in the candid act of his suicide, with his head jerked unnaturally to the left (as though even in death he meant to kiss the side of his dead wife’s pale, waxen face), his chin jutting toward the ceiling. His bulging Adam’s apple looked tremendous and severe, almost like an elbow thrusting up from the center of his neck. There was an opening at Burt’s right temple—a congealed, muddy porthole ringed with dried blood and cluttered with brain matter and startling white bits of skull—and a backsplash of dried blood and snotty globs of brain along the headboard. Burt’s left hand clutched his wife’s forearm; his right arm dangled over the side of the bed. On the floor was a pistol.
How long David stood there staring at this scene, he would never be able to say; it could have been seconds, it could have been a quarter of an hour. It was as if someone else had slipped inside h
is body and was using his eyes, reporting all the information back to him in a string of Morse code.
Were you even sick, Burt? You or anyone in your family? Or did you just lose it and freak out? Jesus Christ, Burt, how were you able to line them all up like that and shoot them in the head? How the fuck could you have done it?
Yet something about this monstrous scene drove home the frailty of his own situation. That van has been parked there, watching us for how long now? When they realized I’d left the hospital with no intention of coming back—with no intention of speaking to them about Ellie and all she holds inside her—would people have poured from that van, entered our home, taken my daughter from me? Have they been planning this from the very beginning?
He’d never held a gun before in his life, yet seeing it there on the floor beside the bed, he suddenly knew that his whole life had changed, and he would have to change with it. For Ellie’s sake.
In the end, he took the gun. He found two boxes of ammo in a sock drawer and he took those, too.
We’ll run. We’ll hide. We’ll get far enough away from this place before they even realize we’re gone. They’ll never know where to find us.
But he would have to take heed not to upset Ellie. She was the most important thing to him, and he would have to concoct some story that wouldn’t frighten her.
She already knows something is wrong, he thought, opening the jewelry box on the dresser. She’s a smart kid. Too damn smart. There was nothing but costume jewelry in there. He closed the lid and noticed a black leather wallet tucked behind the box. He opened it and saw Burt’s face smiling up at him from his driver’s license behind a clear plastic window. David split the wallet and saw that it was choked with bills.
Were you planning to take off in that RV after all? Was this cash your reserve, Burt? A quickie withdrawal from the nearest ATM before you and your family hit the road? And if that was the case, what stopped you? What changed your plans so drastically that you decided this horrible madness was the better option? A quartet of dead bodies lined up on a bed, holes in their heads, a Night Parade of the damned . . .
It was anger that he felt, and try as he might to convince himself it was directed at Burt for his terrible acts, he knew it wasn’t. It was Kathy he was thinking of, Kathy’s terrible face he couldn’t get out of his mind.
Fuckfuckfuck—
He didn’t bother counting the money, though at a glance it looked like nearly six hundred bucks. David stuffed the cash in the back pocket of his pants.
Why, Kathy? Goddamn you, why?
(bring the heater closer, would you, honey? it’s so cold in here)
He tossed the wallet back on the dresser, then opened the dresser drawer. More costume jewelry, some brooches that looked like antiques, a hairbrush, some other random things. And a set of car keys.
Thank you, God.
He took the keys and stuffed them in his pocket before heading back out into the hall and into another bedroom. This one had belonged to one of Burt’s daughters, judging by the overabundance of pinkness, and although he couldn’t remember either of the Langstrom girls’ names, this child’s nickname was stenciled on the wall over her bed in great swooping script: Moon-Bird.
You said your little girl is all right, David? She acting fine to you?
Burt’s daughter had gotten sick. One . . . or possibly both of them. Or maybe they hadn’t. Maybe, given his unstable state and increasing paranoia, Burt had just thought they had. Somehow that was even worse. Either way, he had done the unthinkable. . .
(so cold)
(why?)
David went straight to the closet, grabbed some clothes, some board games from a shelf, a book or two. On the floor of the closet was a little pink suitcase with a rubber handle. David slid this out into the center of the floor, popped it open, and filled it with these random items. He dropped the two boxes of ammo and the handgun inside it, as well.
Back downstairs, he rifled through the kitchen cupboard, which was mostly empty. He surmised that the Langstroms had been holed up here for some time, eating all the food they had on hand until it dwindled down to practically nothing. In the end, David settled for some granola bars and a few warm cans of soda from the cupboard.
In the garage, he opened the Oldsmobile’s trunk and tossed the pink suitcase inside. Then he went back through the house and out the sliding glass door to the front, where he opened the rear door of the Bronco and felt around on the floor for his duffel bag.
Ellie stirred and woke. She never woke like a regular child—all sleepy-lidded, muzzy, blustery like a winter snowstorm. Instead, she always came instantly awake, as if she’d been faking her slumber all along.
“What are you doing?” she said.
“Something’s happened. We can’t go home right now. We’re at a friend’s house and we’re going to use his car.”
“Why can’t we go home?”
“It’s all very complicated,” he said. He grabbed the duffel bag and yanked it out. He motioned for her to follow, too.
She shook her head.
“Let’s go, Ellie. Now.”
She gathered up the shoe box, then slid along the seat and dropped down onto the driveway.
David slung the duffel bag over one shoulder, then grabbed hold of his daughter’s hand. “Come on,” he said, and dragged her back around to the rear of the house.
“Whose house is this?”
“A friend. He’s away. We’re taking his car.”
“Why?”
He pulled her in through the open door.
“We need a different car.”
“Why? Where are we going? Why can’t we go home?”
“Just give me a goddamn minute, will you?” he said, half-shouting. His voice cracked midway through and he struggled not to burst into tears.
He hauled her out to the garage. “Get in,” he said, going around to the open trunk of the Oldsmobile. He dumped the duffel bag inside. His hands were shaking and his nose was running.
When he slammed the trunk’s lid, he saw that Ellie hadn’t moved from the doorway.
“Get in the goddamn car, Eleanor,” he said.
She just stared at him.
His eyelids fluttered closed. In his head, he counted to ten, taking deep breaths. When he opened his eyes again, he said, more calmly, “Please, baby. I need you to get in the car.”
She pointed at him. “Your nose is bleeding.”
He touched two fingers to the divot above his upper lip. The fingers came away slick with blood. What the fuck? He looked up at her again and tried to smile. Said, “Baby, please.”
She carried her shoe box to the rear door of the Olds, opened it, climbed inside. The sound of the door slamming shut was like the report of a starter’s pistol.
It’s a nosebleed from overexertion, he told himself. That’s all it is. It’s a wonder I’m not having a heart attack right now.
Before leaving, he stowed the Bronco in the Langstroms’ garage and shut the door. When he reversed the Oldsmobile out onto the street, it took him a few moments fumbling with gauges and buttons and switches to find the headlights. And then another few seconds to turn the high beams off.
“Why can’t we go home?” she asked from the backseat.
“Because,” he said, his mind racing. “Because. Because we’re not allowed. Some doctors and police came and shut down our street. People were getting sick, and they had to come in and close it off.”
“Just like on the news,” Ellie said.
“Yes. Just like on the news.”
“It’s because of the sickness.”
“Yes.”
“Are we okay?”
“Yes, baby.”
“I mean, we aren’t sick, are we?”
“No.”
“Did everyone on our street get sick?”
“No, honey. It’s just a precaution.”
“So where are we going now?”
“Away.”
“Why?”
“That doesn’t sound like a good idea.”
“Just give me a few minutes to relax, okay? Why don’t you close your eyes and try to get some sleep? I’ll explain it all to you later.”
“We always call Mom before bedtime.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, imagining the roadway a hundred miles wide. “We can’t right now. So just get some rest.”
“Later?” she said.
“Yes. Later.”
“Promise?”
He promised.
Several seconds later, he felt her cold fingers touch the back of his neck.
They drove south.
63
When he opened his eyes, he found the sky cloudless, pure blue. There were no sounds except for the wind sighing in the trees and the bugs chattering away in the tall grass. He ran his palms overtop a fringe of wildflowers.
The headache claimed him the moment he sat up. It slammed around in the center of his brain, ricocheting like buckshot off the walls of his skull. Wincing, he pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. When he touched beneath his nose, he felt the warm slickness and saw the bright red blood on his fingertips. There were streamers of red running down the front of his shirt, too.
Before he could stand, he was alerted to a tickling sensation along his left arm. When he looked at the bandage Tim had applied, he could see specks of blood blossoming up to the surface. And then the bandage bulged, swelling momentarily before sinking back down. The tickling turned to a frantic itch. The bandage—or, more accurately, whatever was beneath the bandage—swelled like a balloon before deflating again.
He tore the bandage off and stared in abject horror at the avalanche of small black beetles that spilled out from his perforated wound. He shrieked, swatted at the wound, feeling no pain, feeling nothing except the sensation of those bugs crawling all over his flesh. It wasn’t until he’d torn open a number of stitches that he realized there were no bugs there. And he was left bleeding freely from the reopened wound.