Consumption

by Heather Herrman

  It sounded like a growl.

  “We are so blessed,” the mayor continued. “The plant has been open and running for almost three months now, and according to our dear plant manager, Mr. Anderson, we’ll be ready for our first shipment of beet sugar sometime next week. Not only has Grady Anderson provided jobs for our town, he’s providing them through service to the faith. SweetHeart Industries will distribute, along with their raw sugar, a special sideline of communion wafers designed for all the world to share in the bounty of our Lord.”

  Now there was a rumble from the crowd. Star felt a vibration coursing through it, a barely contained emotion like the thrill of an exposed nerve against the air.

  “In celebration, I’d like to welcome Mr. Grady Anderson, SweetHeart Industries’s plant manager. Today he will do the honor of assisting us in distributing the Holy Communion.”

  A hush descended on the crowd, and from a door in the back of the room behind where the choir usually stood, a middle-aged man with dark hair approached. He walked forward and into the line of women in white robes. They parted for him, like the Red Sea for Moses.

  Star felt something very like fear blossom in her. She drew back even farther into her seat, not wanting the man to see her. On the stage, Father James walked forward and presented Grady with a cup, which he raised in one hand, and then a white wafer in the other. Grady took a sip from the cup.

  He wore a yellow slicker. This in itself might have been excused due to the other odd costumes throughout the crowd. It appeared that no one had bothered to change out of Festival costumes for church this year. But the slicker didn’t seem to be worn for the purposes of a costume. It was torn and dirty, a large hole running up the right sleeve that left that arm completely exposed. Holding the cup, the man walked across the stage with a loping gait, half dragging his back foot behind him and pulling his arms close to his chest. He wore sunglasses, even in this dark room, a pair of aviator glasses with tan lenses that hid his eyes. But mostly it was something else about him that bothered Star. Something intangible.

  As the man in the slicker crossed the stage, the women upon it (from one of the high school class committees, Star saw, they wore banners like prom queens with their graduation year, 1964, on them—Eve Henderson front and center) moved backward to make room. They watched Grady eagerly, like a dog when its master is holding a ham. Grady stepped off the stage and extended his hands to the crowd.

  “Mr. Grady Anderson,” the mayor said again into the microphone.

  Grady kept his arms raised and his head bowed. The room fell into silence. “Hello,” Grady said. “And thank you. Thank you, thank you.”

  And then she knew. Star understood what it was about the man that bothered her, that intangible element that she hadn’t been able to express. It was in the way he spoke, the way that he moved and gestured. A way that was so close to being right that it almost was. Except…except that there was just the littlest something wrong. Like her father.

  He reminded her of her father. Her father as he’d been these last few weeks. She knew it within the half a second that Grady raised his eyes to the crowd.

  “Oh, God,” Star whispered. She looked toward the stage, then behind her to the back wall, then to Mabel, and then around her at the crowd. They were all like her father. All of them. A final, clarifying image of the ring pushed its way through all her protestations, all her repression of the event. The turquoise ring.

  Except it wasn’t just the ring, was it? Oh, no. There had been something beside the ring. Something she hadn’t allowed herself to see. But now Star saw the image cleanly in her mind, without filter, as the church hummed to life around her, its dark corners pressing, pressing, forcing into focus the part of the memory she’d so carefully edited. She’d seen the ring on the ground of the junkyard, yes, but it hadn’t been all she’d seen.

  Beside the ring, its nail still painted a pearly pink, had been a finger. One single, solitary finger, with no hand or body nearby to claim it.

  Like a mask at the end of Halloween night, the face of the town fell away, and Star saw clearly for the first time. They were monsters, all of them. Each and every one.

  2

  Onstage, Grady raised the wafer Father James had handed to him and the people cheered, pumping their fists into the air. “This communion wafer,” Grady said, “contains the first of what we hope will be many batches of the SweetHeart Sugar.”

  Star felt a pressure on her arm, and Mabel’s breath hot in her ear.

  “There isn’t enough for everyone,” the man in the yellow slicker apologized from the stage. “Not yet. We’ve only made the first small batch of the beet sugar.” The women descended into the aisles now, followed by Father James. They passed silver trays full of the wafers and wine cups down the aisle and, as per the church’s custom, everyone took the wineglasses, drank from them, and then held the wafers, waiting for the command before they could, as one, consume them.

  Father James moved down the aisles, and now he stood at the one in front of Star, the silver tray making its way closer to her.

  “However,” Grady continued, and here he held the wafer high, “there is enough for all in this room who wish to partake, and to you I offer the wafers we have made. For you. In remembrance of our town. Take this and eat, as a solemn pledge of undivided love from me. From SweetHeart Industries. May we offer to our brothers and sisters of Cavus a life poured out in service to one another. For now and forever.”

  Throughout the church, people took a wafer and passed the tray on. Most took, but not all. Some did not take because they were not members of the Church. Others because their parents counted them too young. A few old-timers who didn’t like the way the priest was handing out the wafers like candy in a tin, instead of distributing them one by one at the front like he was supposed to. And several others did not partake because of something they could not name. Only that when they reached their hand out toward the silver tray something made them pull it back. Star was one of these. Finally, the silver trays made it through the room, and those who wanted one held a wafer.

  Onstage, Grady brought the wafer down and then tucked it neatly into his mouth. In the congregation, others followed.

  In the glow of the candlelight, Grady stood in his yellow slicker, a grin on his face as he stared below him.

  All around Star, the candles blinked out.

  Chapter 16

  1

  Erma, Bunny, and Riley arrived at the church at the same time as another group of latecomers—a couple and their little girl. Only apparently it wasn’t their little girl. Not entirely.

  “What the fuck!” Riley pulled Erma and Bunny up short. “Sharon? What the hell are you doing here? What’s Izzy doing here?”

  Erma took a step forward and laid a hand on Riley’s shoulder. “Everything okay?”

  “No. No, everything is absolutely not okay.” He shook her off, and Erma saw a red flush creeping up the man’s rather large neck. The church doors were just closing, the last of the people from the Festival trickling in, lights pouring out of its stained-glass windows. In front of Erma, the woman with the frosted blond hair crossed her arms over her chest and scowled.

  “What’s your problem?” she asked, affecting anger, but Erma thought her words sounded defensive.

  The little girl, evidently fully taking in Riley’s presence for the first time, ran toward him and flung herself around his legs. “Daddy!”

  Riley’s expression softened, and his anger seemed to momentarily abate as he looked down at Izzy. “Hey, baby!” He scooped the little girl up in his arms. “How are you?”

  “She’s fine,” the mother said.

  “That’s good to hear,” said Riley, speaking through clenched teeth. “Although I’m still wondering, Sharon, what it is exactly you’re doing here with her.” Now, for the first time, Riley directed his attention to the man standing behind his ex-wife.

  “And Sam. Why are you with Sharon and Izzy?”

  “
Listen, Sheriff…”

  Erma watched as the young blond man bumbled about. He was tall and good-looking in an easygoing, surfer-boy sort of way. He was upset. So upset that he was actually ringing his hands, something Erma hadn’t ever seen anyone do in real life before. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea. They never mentioned…” He squeezed his hands together more tightly, his eyes puppy-dog wide. “That is, Sharon never told me who she was. That she was the Sharon. I just thought she was a woman visiting her relatives, or something.”

  “Daddy!” The little girl in Riley’s arm tugged at her father, trying to get his attention. Riley looked down.

  “What is it, sweetheart?”

  “Why don’t you just leave us alone?” Sharon asked.

  “Leave you alone? What the hell are you even doing here?”

  “Riley, I think maybe we should just leave it be for now.” Bunny said, stepping forward and coolly placing herself between her nephew and his ex to assume a position of authority. “Why don’t you just let little Izzy stay with her mother and we can figure all this out after church? We’re already late.”

  “Riley, please,” said Sam, walking toward his boss. He looked sorry, Erma thought again, but there was something else hidden behind his sympathy. “Gosh, I had no idea,” Sam said.

  Riley took a step back, clutching Izzy to him. “Sorry? Sorry? I hardly think sorry covers it, Sam.”

  “But Sheriff, I didn’t know,” said Sam. “I met her at a bar in Billings—you know I always go there on my Thursdays off for pool league—remember, I showed you the new stick I ordered from Vermont? Anyway, I met Sharon there, and we just hit it off.”

  “I’ll just bet you did,” said Riley. “Didn’t happen to mention you were a cop, did you?”

  Sam bowed his head and kept silent. He was ashamed, all right, but from where Erma stood, she could see the bottom of his face, whereas Riley couldn’t. And was that a smile lurking at the corner of his lips? Yes, she thought it most certainly was.

  “Uncle Sam’s our friend!” Izzy said gleefully, bouncing up and down in Riley’s arms. “We stayeded the night with him!”

  Riley’s face lost all its expression. “Uncle Sam. You stayed the night? Is that true, Sharon?”

  The woman shrugged. Erma continued to watch Sam, and she was sure of it now. His smile grew wider, and he had to lift his hand to cover it.

  “Answer me, dammit!”

  Izzy pulled back at her father’s anger.

  “Don’t you yell around our daughter!” said Sharon. “And I don’t have to tell you where I’ve been or what I’m doing here.”

  “Oh, you sure as hell do,” said Riley.

  “Patrick,” said Bunny, still standing between them. “It is doing us no good to argue. Let’s just be sensible and—”

  “Sensible!” Riley exploded, his face beet red. “When my daughter, my daughter who I think’s fifteen hundred miles away, is staying in the same town as me. Don’t you tell me to be sensible, dammit!”

  Spittle flew from his lips and hit his aunt on her prim cheek, just above the red stripe of her lipstick. She reached a hand up to wipe it away right when Izzy began to sob in Riley’s arms. “I want doooown!” she wailed. “PUTTED ME DOWN!”

  Erma saw Riley’s face crumple as he pulled the little girl into him, burying her face into his chest and tucking her head under his chin. “Shh. It’s okay, sweetheart. I’m sorry. Daddy’s sorry.”

  Erma, unable to escape her social worker tendencies, tore her eyes away from Sam and stepped forward, extending her hand.

  “I’m Erma. Erma Scott.”

  “Hi.” Sharon didn’t offer her own hand.

  “It seems like you guys have a lot of stuff to figure out here…”

  “Damn right!” said Riley.

  “And I don’t want to intrude, but maybe all of this would be better left for another time? As far as I can tell, everybody is safe, and the little girl’s with her parents.”

  “Erma, I know you mean well, but you’re missing the point,” said Riley. Gently, he set Izzy down. “I only get to see my little girl a few times a year because she”—here he turned and pointed an accusatory finger at Sharon—“decided that she just couldn’t live in Montana anymore and had to take my daughter back to Louisiana, which may as well be a million miles away.”

  “I didn’t see you moving,” Sharon said.

  “Not the point,” said Riley.

  “How come you never did move with ’em?” asked Sam.

  Erma finalized her dislike for the man with those words. She wished John would get here already, and maybe they’d leave tonight after all. Cavus was producing just a little too much drama for her taste.

  “Sam, you’d better shut your goddamned mouth, or I’ll shut it for you,” said Riley

  “Patrick!” Bunny grabbed her nephew’s arm. “That’s enough! All of you. We have to think of the child.”

  Erma watched as Riley shut his eyes and began to take deep breath after deep breath. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I just don’t understand what you’re doing here, Sharon! Spying on me?”

  “No!”

  “And what are you doing with my deputy? Didn’t you know he worked for me?”

  “I might have, but—”

  “But what!”

  Erma’s eyes glided back toward Sam, and she noticed a funny thing. He’d dropped his hand from his mouth and now he was smiling, fully and completely smiling. No, grinning. The bastard was grinning…and she’d be damned if he wasn’t missing three or four teeth right there at the front.

  His smile jack-o’-lantered its way directly at her, and unable to help herself, Erma moved toward him, the argument between Riley and his ex white noise around her. Why the fuck was Sam grinning at her?

  “It hasn’t been easy for me, Riley,” Sharon said. “You can just go on with your life like nothing’s happened, and I…”

  A new sound, like a growl, finally pulled Erma out of her fascinated observation; it was a loud sound, huge, and then it clicked into place. An engine.

  As one, the little group turned toward the noise and saw a large, rusted pickup gunning its way down Main Street.

  2

  John and Maxie ran through the empty streets of Cavus, toward the sound of church bells. Maxie, although usually a jubilant dog, did not bark at the wind in the grass nor waver from her master’s side. Things were not as they should be, and the part of her as old as the dogs who’d hunted in return for shelter in man’s cave pushed to the forefront. They were a team, she and her master, and whatever was needed she would do. Besides all that, she could smell the fear on the man charging beside her, and she knew that the fear smell could mean danger. She was wary and watchful, running beside him as much to protect him as to display her obedience.

  John didn’t say anything. He thought now and again to call out to people, to yell for help, but something stopped him.

  He had to get to Erma. The thought repeated itself with a new intensity. Erma. Erma. What if the man went to the church? What if he was set to perform some kind of larger-scale attack? Because something was definitely wrong with the man. He hadn’t even looked human, running at him like that. Scuttling, for God’s sake, like a goddamned insect.

  John’s heart beat in rhythm to his footsteps as he maneuvered through the white tents, empty now. He looked behind him to check on Maxie. She wasn’t a young dog, and he hated to push her like this to keep up with him. He stopped, hands on his legs. He wasn’t young either.

  “Hang in there, old girl,” he said, motioning for Maxie as he started running again. The wind picked up, whispering its song through the trees that lined the main street and tickling the colored flags on the tents to life.

  The spire jutted ahead of him, the church just around the corner. As he rounded it, he saw a small cluster of people, Erma among them.

  He stopped, panting, to catch his breath. She was fine. He need only get her and together they would leave.

  As he stood the
re, preparing to jog the remainder of the distance, a new sound filled the air. The noise was loud and low, a buzzing kind of growl, and when he looked to the right he saw a rusted-out pickup truck appear at the opposite end of Main Street.

  John watched, helplessly, as the truck began to pick up speed. It flew forward, closing the distance between it and Erma’s group even as John registered the truck’s intent—it meant to run them down.

  “Erma!” He shouted her name, rushing forward, but it was too late, he would never make it in time.

  Maxie, faster than her master, bounded ahead, and in an impossible burst of speed brought herself between the humans and the truck, throwing herself squarely in front of it.

  The truck careened sideways, but even as it did, John saw the man leaning out of it, the long shape of a gun extending from his arm.

  3

  It was the goddamned dog that decided him.

  Pill entered Cavus with one thought on his mind, and one thought only. He had to blow up the church. He had to blow it up while everyone was inside it. But everyone, apparently, was not inside. Including the dog. Pill saw the people first, a group of them who hadn’t gone in. He’d have to shoot them, he guessed. Shoot them and blow up the church. But then along came the dog.

  He saw the creature only out of the corner of his eye. Pill’s hand was busy with the gun when the cussed dog ran right out in front of him! Right out!

  “Dammit!” Pill cursed, dropping his left hand from the gun and using it to grab the wheel that he’d been steering with his knee. “Move, darn you!”

  Even the babies, Pill. Jessi’s voice came to him. Even the babies.

  The dog rushed ahead, throwing itself in between the group of people and the truck, barking furiously. Even the babies, yeah, Jessi. He knew. The fur came closer and closer, the dog’s eyes looking up to meet his, their gold and brown irises steady, unflinching. The dog, just a dumb, mute creature, was ready and willing to make the sacrifice of its own flesh to save those humans. Except of course it couldn’t save them. Pill could run the truck right over it. Right over it and it would be nothing more than a bump, would barely make the truck waver. But the damned dog didn’t know that.