by C. E. Murphy
"I'm just telling you like I see it, hon." Vera tilted her head toward the second door. "He's waiting for you."
Rosie nodded and navigated her way around Vera's desk, file cabinets, and another stack of rebar and small girders that made the bare-walled office seem more industrial than it had ever looked before. All those things had always been there, she knew that, but it all felt different now. Except it wasn't the factory that had changed. Rosie sighed, knocked on Doherty's door, and waited for his peevish "Come in" before she pushed the door open and went inside.
His office looked worse than Vera's, with a dirty glass window overlooking the factory floor and papers strewn everywhere. A pin-up girl calendar hung on the wall with June's picture still up. After a second glance, Rosie realized the calendar said 1944, and wondered if he just especially liked the rocket-riding girl in the picture. Doherty himself stood at the window, hands folded behind his back like he imagined himself to be some kind of Howard Hughes, surveying his domain. Except where Hughes stood slim and handsome and dapper in well-cut suits, Doherty had gone soft a long time ago and probably never wore a good suit in his life. Vera hadn't been wrong, either: he looked paunchy and pale instead of robust, like he was a couple cigarettes short of a heart attack. There were bags under his eyes when he looked at Rosie. "Please sit down, Miss Ransom."
"Sure, Supe." Rosie sat in one of the wooden chairs that faced Doherty's desk, then scooted it backward several inches as he came to lean on the near side of the desk and look down at her. Pasty or not, he looked imposing from that angle, and her heart lurched from new nerves. "What's going on, sir?"
"You've caused quite a stir here, Miss Ransom. We try to keep the factory free of accidents, of course, but we've never had to consider what to do if a murder is committed on the grounds."
Rosie flushed. "It was self-defense, Supe."
"Of course it was, but a man was still killed on the premises."
"And at least five girls!"
Doherty smiled ingratiatingly. "Well, now, we don't know that they were killed on the premises, Miss Ransom, do we?"
"Well, what does that even matter? It was one of your employees killing them, and if I hadn't stopped him, I'd be dead! And maybe others, too!" Rosie started to rise in self-righteous indignation, but Doherty's voice snapped out: "Sit down, Miss Ransom."
Rosie sank back into the chair, her face hot. Doherty looked at her impassively. "The fact remains that you've committed a dramatic act of violence on the property, Miss Ransom, and the whole floor is talking about it. The girls are frightened."
"There's nothing to be frightened of anymore. Goode is dead."
"But you're still here."
Rosie stared up at the flabby superintendent in bewilderment. "I work here."
"No, Miss Ransom, you don't. Not anymore."
It felt like a rivet had plunged into her, not Goode, after all. Rosie's breath escaped her and wouldn't come back, leaving her heart to hang between beats in a hollow where her chest had been. She even looked down, sort of expecting to see another mist of blood and bone from the impact of Doherty's words. When she saw she was whole, it took an effort to lift her head again. Her question was only a shape, not even a sound: "What?"
"Miss Ransom, the owners are unanimous in agreement on this. We can't have a killer running around the floor, frightening the other girls."
"But you had one for months!" Rosie cried. Her breath came back in a rush, hurting as badly as the emptiness did. "I stopped him! There's nothing to be afraid of anymore!"
"They didn't know there was something to be afraid of before," Doherty said almost gently, as if his crazy logic would make sense if only Rosie listened carefully enough. "Now they do, and what they're afraid of is you. We can't have that. We're happy to offer you a very generous three months' wages as compensation, but this is the last time you'll be permitted on the premises, Miss Ransom. You're fired."
"You can't…you can't do that. I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't—!"
"Of course we can. For the morale and comfort of our other employees. Besides." Doherty's lip curled. "I'm sure you have a young man who will be home any moment, Miss Ransom. Three months' pay is probably more than you'd end up with when he expects you to quit so he'll have a job himself."
"I never planned to quit!"
Doherty laughed. "Don't be silly, Miss Ransom. Things will be going back to the way they were soon. You might as well accept it gracefully. There's nothing less attractive than a sullen woman, and you'll want to keep your solider happy by smiling for him when he gets home."
"You don't know anything about what I want." To her horror, Rosie's voice shook and tears threatened. "What I want is my job, I don't deserve to lose my job—"
"Life isn't fair, sweetheart, and you're just a girl. Get over it, and go home to make yourself pretty for your soldier."
"No! I'm not going to just let you do this, I'll—I'll find a lawyer, I'll sue you for my job—!"
Doherty laughed again. "You do that, Miss Ransom. You find yourself a lawyer who'll take on a girl riveter who murdered a shot-up war hero over a job, and see how far that gets you in the court of public opinion. I look forward to it. Now, I have a lot of other business today, so do I need to have you escorted off the premises or can you find your own way?" He pushed away from the desk and went around behind it, sitting to pull paperwork toward himself and dismissing Rosie from his attention entirely.
After a few seconds Rosie pushed herself up, trembling, and whispered, "This isn't over, Doherty." Biting her cheek to keep tears from falling, she walked carefully to the door and left, getting it closed behind her before a sob broke through her tightly compressed lips.
Vera looked up, her expression shifting from surprised confusion to resigned comprehension inside a heartbeat. "Oh, no. Oh, dangit, Rosie. I didn't know. I swear I didn't know. I'd have warned you going in."
Rosie pressed her knuckles against her mouth, fighting to keep sobs inside, and nodded as tears streamed down her cheeks. Vera offered a handkerchief that Rosie knotted around her fist until her fingers went cold, and she kept biting the inside of her mouth until the pain overwhelmed the feeling of a hole punched through her whole body. It didn't help, though: the tears kept coming until the door behind her opened suddenly and she fell backward toward Doherty.
He caught her and pushed her forward again with the distaste of a man who'd found something unpleasant stuck to his shoe. "I told you to get off the premises. Vera, call security. Now!"
Vera, agonized, reached for the phone, but Rosie cried, "No!" She ran from the office to careen through familiar, fond halls that were no longer where she belonged. It took hardly a minute to crash through the factory's front door, stumble a step or two into the maze of girders and boxes, then fall to her knees and sob helplessly with her forehead bent all the way to the ground. Tears collected dust, then disintegrated from drops into damp spots as Rosie smashed her fists on the ground and struggled to hold back shrieks of hurt and anger and frustration. Another girl stealing a smoke break emerged from the mess of girders, gasped, and scurried past Rosie without offering any solace. A horrible laugh scraped from the back of Rosie's throat and turned into more tears that sent her rolling onto her side, curled up with her knees against her chest.
Everybody had been right. She'd just been waiting for it to hit her, except they'd been wrong about what could break her. Not Goode, not Pearl, not anything about demons or Redeemers, oh no. Losing her job, that broke the camel's back. That turned out to be more than she could take. All her independence, gone in a snap, because Doherty had one thing right: finding another job when the soldiers were coming back would be just about impossible. She had plans in place, she'd even been accepted at one of the community colleges, but she'd counted on a few more months of employment, maybe even through the end of the year, to make it all work. All of a sudden it seemed like nothing would work, like she'd lost it all.
Rosie knew she should get up off the ground
and stop crying, but she couldn't make her arms unlock from around her knees, or untuck her head from the tight ball she'd rolled into. She bet Jean felt just like this right now, but worse, since Rosie had only lost a stupid job and Jean had lost her best friend. She still couldn't unroll herself, only lie there in a knot on the ground and cry.
"Aw, the poor little Redeemer is so sad. Poor creature. No wonder you things don't last very long, if you fall apart so easy. You're not legends at all, just scared little girls." A woman's voice spoke above her, sweet tones rolling around the walls made by girders and factory equipment before a booted foot caught Rosie in the kidney and turned her sobs into a scream. She rolled onto her back, then scrambled backward in a crab-walk until she crashed into a stack of girders and had to gape upward at the woman standing over her.
She worked in the factory, obviously: she wore coveralls and heavy boots and, right now, a smirk that broadened as she kicked Rosie across the jaw, then squatted to say, "You call that a scream, Redeemer? Let me show you what a real scream sounds like."
Her jaw unhinged, dropping horrifyingly far, and the sound that ripped from her throat made the air wobble around them. It hit Rosie like a fist, knocking her head back, and the woman—the demon—laughed. "That was fun. I haven't gotten to let loose in so long. God, I felt it when Johnny died, did you know that? This terrible shiver, like everything he was had just come apart. And next thing I knew, everybody was talking about how Rosie Ransom from the day shift had killed a supe, and I knew. I knew if I just waited you'd come back, and I'd get the chance to be the one who killed the Redeemer. Oh, honey, your ears are bleeding! Isn't that a thing!"
Another scream shattered the air, reverberating off the steel until Rosie couldn't tell where the sound came from. Wetness trickled from her ears and her nose, and the scream's weight kept her pinned in place like it had mass of its own. She struggled to lift a hand, but the screaming demon laughed and rolled back on her heels. "Well, I'm hardly gonna let you lay hands on me, am I, Redeemer? Not if I want to live. Oh, gosh, your eyes, sweetie, they're all bloodshot. I haven't screamed anybody to death from this close before. This is swell!"
"Wh …" The word wouldn't even shape itself in Rosie's mouth, but the demon cackled with pleasure anyways.
"What am I? I was a symphony, baby. I was an aria, dying to get out. Oh, heck, no, I got that wrong." Her voice dropped into deadly flat tones. "Killing to get out. I'm the music my maker couldn't hold, and now I can destroy you with sound. Isn't that something? I bet one more scream will do it. I think your head might explode. I can't wait to see."
Rosie jerked her hand up, trying to reach the woman, but the demon's jaw fell open again and her cry slammed Rosie's hand backward again, bruising it against the girders. It hurt, like a distant surprise that couldn't really get through the pain in her head. Her tears were thick and dark and not really tears at all. Blood, its redness almost black right against her eyes like that. Dark crimson ate at her vision, reducing it to nothing, and then the screaming demon made an ugly short sound and silence fell.
Rosie wiped blood from her eyes, blinking frantically to see Jean's blurry form standing above the demon with a long piece of rebar shoved through the demon's back. For a heartbeat or two, Rosie just stared at the rage and triumph contorting Jean's features. Then she lurched forward, slapping her hands on either side of the demon's head and letting her fear turn to righteous rage. In seconds, power swept through her, pouring into the demon and whipping around, separating its essence from the human soul until the one breathed a soundless sigh of relief and faded, and the other turned to black dust on Rosie's hands, disappearing against her skin.
She fell back against the girders, relief and gladness washing through her, and Jean, standing above her, let go of the rebar to fall onto her butt on the concrete. They stared at one another across the body, both breathing hard, until an awful, proud grin twisted Jean's features. "Oh my God, Rosie. What are we gonna do with the body?"
ELEVEN
"We're gonna call the police!"
"Really?" Jean's awful grin stayed fixed in place, like skewering the demon had been cathartic. "You really want to call the cops and tell them you've killed somebody else on the factory grounds inside of three days? Or did I kill her?"
"No, you…." Rosie stared at the woman's body. Her jaw hadn't re-hinged itself and her face looked horrible. Rosie glanced away again, pressing her knuckles against her mouth. Behind them, she said, "You stopped her long enough for me to Redeem her. I think she'd have…gotten better, if I hadn't. I mean, not like…better better. Not human again. But I think she would have healed and come after us again. We can't not call the cops, Jean…."
"Bet we can. Bet we can bug right out of here and nobody's gonna know any better. Do you want to explain that to that detective?" Jean gestured sharply at the woman's face.
"No, but I—I—I could call Hank," Rosie stuttered. "Maybe he'd know what to do. I don't know what to do."
"Where's the nearest payphone?"
Rosie looked helplessly beyond the girders they were hidden among. "I don't know, around the back of the factory? Except no, I remember Ethel grousing that some jerk had yanked the cord free and nobody had come to fix it yet. Half a mile? I don't know, Jean."
"So you think we should leave her here, go find a phone, call your pet cop, come back here, let him show up with the rest of the cavalry, and explain it all to them then? I say we run while the running is good, Rosie."
"Somebody will figure out it's me anyways! I just left the factory two minutes ago, Jean! And I was upset, and I already killed someone, and they'll put it all together!"
"Then we better take the body with us." Jean stood, her round face set with determination. "Think there's a hose around here we can wash the blood away with? It'll only take a few minutes for the ground to dry, in this heat."
"No." Rosie swayed, even though she hadn't gotten up. "No, I'm gonna stay and face the music, Jean. You better go, though. You better not get involved."
"How can I not be involved? I stabbed her!"
"They don't have to know that. I can say I did it. I can say—"
"That you were leaving the factory and thought some girl needed to be stabbed in the back for kicks?"
"Well, she looks like …" Rosie fluttered her fingers at the woman's face, which was slacker now, as if the idea of being dead had caught up to her. It made the distortion of her jaw even worse, loose and wobbly-looking. Rosie could see unnatural ridges near the back of her throat, and wondered if they amplified the creature's screams.
"I couldn't see her face. I just saw her standing over you, screaming like that."
"I've already got the bruises to prove I was in a fight with her," Rosie said stubbornly. "Really, Jean, you should go. At least back to the car where you can say you didn't see anything." She looked around, confusion rising in her chest. "Where is everybody? Half the factory should've come running at those screams."
Jean glanced around too, uncertainty replacing the determination she'd shown in the past few minutes. "Maybe the steel baffled the sound somehow?"
"I don't think anything could baffle it that much." Rosie finally tried pushing herself up, gasping as pain bounced around her torso and finally settled in her kidneys as a sharp throb. She faltered, using the girders to hold herself, and Jean surged forward to get under one of Rosie's arms, helping her to stand.
"Never mind where everyone is. I couldn't leave you here even if I wanted to, could I? You can hardly move. You need to get checked out at the hospital, Ro."
"Hospital. Cops. What's next?" Rosie wheezed with the effort of moving. Back in the beginning, she'd been sore from hefting a riveting gun and working muscles unaccustomed to hard labor, but that had been a long time ago and turned out to have nothing on the pain of being beaten up.
"Being arrested for murder," Jean muttered. "Come on. I'll get you into the car, back it up to the steelworks here and drag the body into the trunk, and we'll go call
your friend Hank."
"Jean," Rosie said in despair, but Jean had the strength Rosie lacked just then, and Jean half-pulled, half-carried her along to the Oldsmobile, then all but dropped her into the car's big back seat. Rosie fell against the tan leather with a whimper, then gritted her teeth as Jean scrambled into the driver's seat and backed the car up to the stacks of girders, just as she'd threatened to. "Jean, don't. If we leave her here, then maybe—"
"Then maybe the cops will think she looks so scary they'll bury the whole thing instead of investigating? Maybe, or maybe she'll blow the whole lid on there being demons in Detroit. I'm just going to do it, Rosie. Yell at me later, if you can catch your breath enough to."
"I will yell at you," Rosie whispered through her teeth. The pain hadn't really faded. More like she'd started getting used to it, she thought. She started to sit up, just to see if she could, then realized it might be better if she stayed down, where nobody could see her. "I'm thinking like a criminal," she whispered to the Oldsmobile's ceiling, then crushed her eyes shut. By anybody's lights a criminal pretty well defined her right then. The light changed as Jean opened the Oldsmobile's trunk, and the car echoed with a dull thud as something heavy—heavy enough, anyways—got dropped inside. Jean closed the trunk gently and disappeared for a few minutes, leaving Rosie to listen to a rush of water that sprang up suddenly, then drained away.
"Found a hose," Jean muttered in triumph as she got into the car. "There wasn't much blood. I thought there'd be more. You okay?"
"Nothing a couple of aspirin and some whiskey wouldn't cure." Rosie pressed her lips together as Jean put the car in drive and left the parking lot at a perfectly sedate pace, like she hauled bodies in her trunk every day. Once they were on the road Rosie pulled herself to sitting, taking deep breaths to test the pain in her back and ribs. "It's not quite so bad now."
"Good. Where's your friend live?"
"Hank? I've got no idea, Jean." Rosie pulled another deep breath, then squirmed over the back of the front seat to sit by Jean. "I've only got his number."