by James Newman
The sheriff turned toward his deputy, winced. Keenan just stared at the ground. The acting medical examiner’s estimate placed the boy’s death at sometime Saturday evening.
“Shit.” Guice turned back to Joel Rohrig. “Cause of death?”
“It’s too early to tell for sure, pending a post-mortem. But I’ll get right on it, let you know as soon as I can.”
“Please do.” Sheriff Guice slapped the ponytailed young man lightly on the back, stood. “I’d appreciate it, Doc.”
“Not a problem.” Rohrig offered the sheriff a weak smile, remained in his squatting position beside the corpse. “However, you know as well as I do, Sheriff, the tests are gonna show those stings are what killed him. I’d bet money on it.”
“What the hell do you think it was?” asked Guice.
“I don’t know. I’ll draw the toxin, send it off to the lab in Raleigh. Could take a couple weeks.”
“That’s fine. Do the best you can.”
Joel turned to the sheriff then, and it was his turn to ask a question. “Honestly, Sheriff, do those look like any kind of bee stings you’ve ever seen?”
“No.” Guice shook his head. “They don’t.”
“If so, that was one fucking monster bee,” Joel mumbled.
The medical examiner closed the corpse’s eyes then with two fingers, and Sheriff Guice couldn’t help it—a sigh of relief escaped from his tightly-pinched lips.
So much better, when their eyes were closed. So much easier to handle when they weren’t staring off into nothingness like that. Staring at things the living could not see.
Guice closed his own eyes, dreading the days ahead of him. Dreading the tasks to come.
CHAPTER 12
Curiosity had been eating at Marietta Rude for the past hour, like the arthritis that nibbled constantly at her tired old bones, and she couldn’t take it anymore. If she didn’t find out what was going on over there at the old Heller Home property, she feared she would go stark raving mad.
Rude had lived alone ever since her husband’s heart attack in ‘81. They had purchased the property across from Heller Home long before the hospital ever came to be, and had witnessed its rise and fall (at least, Mrs. Rude had seen the latter—A.J. had been in his grave for the better part of twenty years by the time the place burned down) from the swing on their front porch. Since Arnie Jack died, though, Marietta refrained from going outside, as one never could tell what kind of hoodlums hung around Morganville these days. Things weren’t the way they used to be, thirty years ago, when a person could go outside and work in the garden without fear of those teenagers racing down the highway with their loud music and their litter flying out across your lawn, back when a senior citizen like Marietta Rude could take a trip to the store for some Ex-Lax or a bottle of Carter’s Liver Pills and just leave the front door unlocked with nary a concern. Now Marietta Rude was resigned to watching the comings and goings of those in the neighborhood from inside her home, from the big bay window facing the street. She’d pull back the curtain and sit there for hours on end, sipping at a glass of warm milk or nibbling at a piece of her homemade blueberry pie as she watched the neighborhood ne’er-do-wells sneak through her yard like little rodents when they thought she wasn’t looking. She knew, oh yes—Marietta Rude hadn’t been born yesterday. Or the day before that, even.
As Marietta sat watching the scene across the street through that rain-stippled window, she found she now felt more than contempt. For it was not kids that she saw, playing over there at the ruins of Heller Home where they weren’t supposed to be playing...but something else. Something that filled Marietta Rude with the closest thing to true fear she could remember having ever felt.
The police were over there. The Sheriff’s Department. Sheriff Guice and his men had roped the place off with that yellow tape they used on shows like America’s Most Wanted. Marietta knew darn well what that meant, and she could not deny the fear that crept into her veins like an injection of ice water.
Heller Home was an official crime scene.
For the second time this year.
That thought sent goosebumps across her old-woman flesh, a chill down her spine and through her legs. Marietta could not rest until she knew what in tarnation was going on over there. She squinted, pursing her wrinkled lips as she stared out the window at Sheriff Guice. He spoke with a tall, skinny youth with too-long hair, a young man Marietta thought looked vaguely familiar but couldn’t quite place. A couple patrol cars were parked along the side of Pellham Road, as well as a dark green van.
Something big was going on over there. God, how it drove Marietta crazy not knowing what.
Marietta knew Sheriff Sam Guice fairly well, as he or one of his deputies had been out to her house many times since he’d been sworn in to his position. Guice had made so many visits out to the Rude place, whether to coax Marietta’s fat Persian cat, Bernadine, out of the massive oak tree in front of her place, or to assure her that there had been no prowler stalking outside of her house in the wee hours of the morning, only raccoons digging through her garbage cans out back. Yes, Marietta Rude and Sam Guice went back several years, and she knew he would tell her what was going on. He’d better. She’d been one of the voters who had elected that man into office—he’d best not forget—and she had a right to know. She decided she would give him time to get back to his desk, but that would be the extent of her waiting. And Mavis, that hateful old bitty who answered the sheriff’s phone, best not give her any lip either.
My-oh-my, there’d be plenty to talk about come Saturday night’s bridge club meeting. Nan and Lucy and Helga and Gay would be so envious of her! Marietta grinned, and her wrinkled reflection in the rain-streaked window leered back at her, all large yellowed dentures beneath heavy pink lips.
Marietta stood now, slowly, and her arthritic joints creaked like ancient doors opening onto musty, forgotten places as she headed for the single bathroom at the back of her house. Her bladder had been acting up something awful lately, and before the day was over she planned to call Dr. Whitman again. Sure, it would be the fourth time he had seen her in the past couple weeks, but if he didn’t like it she’d just take her business somewhere else. Nothing he prescribed her seemed to help, and she sure as heck wasn’t paying him to look handsome (although, Marietta had to admit, that young whippersnapper sure would’ve earned every bit of her money and then some if that had been the case).
Marietta gave a dry chuckle as she crossed the living room. But then she moaned as her knees began to pain her too, along with everything else. Her knees bothered her the worst when the weather got like this. She moaned again, no longer sure she could make it to the bathroom before she was forced to sit. She would definitely call Dr. Whitman today, look up his number and call him at home if she had to—after she had spoken with Sheriff Guice, of course. Her hands trembled like liver-spotted branches on some scrawny, weatherworn tree, and she cursed her failing body as she stumbled down the hallway toward her bathroom, past faded pictures of her friends and family who had long ago gone to be with Jesus. Somehow, Marietta Rude had outlived them all—even her granddaughter, poor naive Kitty who was killed in that wreck ten years ago, thanks to a good-for-nothing boyfriend Marietta had warned her about—though she was quite sure none of them had suffered as she was suffering in these, her last few years.
“Golden years, my ass,” Marietta grumbled when she at last stood before the bathroom door. Her hand went to the knob, and she stood there for a few seconds before opening the door, offering a question to the stale air around her: “Lord, what did I ever do to deserve such misery?”
The only reply Marietta Rude received when she stepped into the bathroom was her own horrified scream.
Floor to ceiling, wall to wall, Marietta Rude’s lavatory was covered in a dark, roiling mass of flies. Chrome-green bluebottle flies, the kind Marietta had seen on Bernadine when the cat was struck down by some sadistic bastard on Pellham Road a few years back...millions, trilli
ons of metallic-bodied filth flies usurping the room, leaving not a spot of linoleum or porcelain uncovered by their twitching, furiously-buzzing bodies. A veritable carpet of the nasty things seethed wherever Marietta looked, an undulating sea of black and gray and shiny metallic jade. Their buzz filled the room, filled Marietta’s head, a persistent drone that seemed almost musical in its fervor. It sounded louder, in that moment, than anything Marietta Rude had ever heard before, louder than the rumble of thunder directly above her home now, louder than the groan of a Mac truck passing by on the highway outside.
And it grew louder with every passing second.
Flies. Hideous, infernal things, everywhere Marietta looked. So many of them, more than the old woman had ever seen.
That carpet of flies covered everything, even the shower curtain, which jiggled and jerked beneath their collective weight like something alive in itself. Even in the center of the room, in the void of space surrounded by the mass upon the wall, ceiling, and floor, more bluebottle flies swarmed about as if looking for a place to perch where there was no more room amongst their brethren.
They came from the toilet, Marietta saw, as she stood there paralyzed with fear. More of them. And still more of them. Like a pulsing mass of solid waste from a septic tank backed up beyond repair, they rolled forth from that porcelain mouth in an almost liquid rush, pushing up and into the air as one to join those already filling the room. Still more. And more.
The old woman clutched at her chest as pain like a thousand needles shot through her eighty-year-old heart. Her left arm tingled, her legs gave out beneath her, and by the time she fell backward and hit the floor Marietta Rude was already dead.
A single bubbly fart escaped from beneath the old woman’s flowery gown...and, as if answering some beacon call, her buzzing, chrome-bodied visitors lit upon her corpse like miniscule vultures hungry and ready to feast.
Within the space of several seconds, every inch of Marietta’s dead flesh was covered in quivering black.
Thousands of the feverish green-black bodies gathered to form a single word—MOLOCH—on the floor, next to Marietta’s body. Then they dispersed, joining the pulsing sea atop the wrinkled corpse, and the word was gone as quickly as it had appeared.
CHAPTER 13
The night following Randall Simms’ funeral, David Little rolled over in bed and reached around his wife’s big belly to cup her left breast in one hand.
“Are you awake?” he whispered.
“Mmm. Barely.”
He rubbed at Kate’s nipple in slow circular motions with the tip of his index finger. It grew hard beneath his touch.
“I can’t sleep,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” said Kate. “Something the matter?”
“I don’t know. I was just...thinking.”
“About what?”
“About the last time we made love.”
“It has been a while, hasn’t it?” Kate said.
“Too long.”
Kate snuggled up to him, her butt against his crotch.
“Do you think...” David cleared his throat, pushed her thick brown curls away from her neck and kissed her there. He swallowed loudly in the quiet of the room, cleared his throat again before making his request: “Do you think we could...um...mess around a little?”
Kate was silent for a few seconds, but finally she answered, “Do you really think that’s a good idea?”
“I think it’s an excellent idea.”
“Of course you do. But you know what I mean.”
“It’s not going to hurt anything,” David said.
“You can’t be sure.”
“No...but remember what Dr. Melznick said?”
“I don’t know, honey,” Kate said. “I still feel funny.”
“You don’t want me to touch you. I understand.”
“No. It’s not that.”
“Because of what happened.”
“No, really,” Kate said. “It’s not that.” But she didn’t sound so sure.
“I’ll be gentle.”
“I’m sorry. Can’t we just wait?”
“I’ve waited for eight months, Kate.”
“I’m sorry,” she said again.
“I have needs.”
“So do I, David. But we’ve waited this long. Can’t we wait one more month, until after the baby’s here?”
“I thought I could. But I’m not so sure anymore.” He snuggled closer to her, and she could feel him stiffening between her buttocks. “You know I would never hurt you, Kate.”
She rolled over then, grunting with the effort it took her, and met his eyes in the moonlight that crept through their bedroom window.
“Please, David,” she said. “I know it’s not easy, but please try to understand. I’m just not ready.”
David’s hand slid down her belly...slowly...lower, working its way beneath her girth with some effort until his fingers brushed through the wiry thatch of hair at her groin. He extended his middle finger, massaged her there. So gentle. Trying to prove to her that he would take it slow. He would never hurt her, not for anything in the world.
“You looked so sexy in that dress today,” he said.
“David, no...”
“I’ll be careful,” he promised again. “Just relax.”
For those first couple of minutes, she moaned softly. Enjoying his touch. And then he gasped as her left hand found his hardness, gripped it through his pajama bottoms. But she did not stroke him. Only clutched him in her palm. Scared.
“Oh, Kate,” he said. “I love you.”
“I love you...”
Their lips found one another; their tongues worked together. Kate breathed heavily into David’s mouth, and the taste of her was exquisite. God, how he had missed it.
His finger eased inside her, found her clit and massaged its hardness.
“Oh, David,” Kate moaned.
He felt as if he might burst at any minute. Before he ever got the chance to enter her. His penis felt hard as steel in her hand.
“David...”
“It feels good, doesn’t it?” he whispered. “I told you.”
And then the moment was shattered. She slid away from him, released his cock. His finger withdrew from her.
“Kate, what is it?”
“I’m sorry, David. I’m just not ready.”
“But—”
“I’m sorry.” Once again she rolled over, her back to him.
“Did I hurt you?”
“No.”
“Then...why?”
“I don’t know. I just can’t. Not yet. I’m sorry.”
“I love you, Kate. I would never make you do anything you didn’t want to—”
“I’m sorry,” she said again.
David rose from the bed, left her lying there.
He said nothing else to his wife as he stalked into the bathroom, where he masturbated in the darkness, stroking himself to an almost painful release on the spotless linoleum.
CHAPTER 14
Two weeks after Mrs. Marietta Rude died of a massive heart attack, on December 20, David Little sat beside his daughter in her bed, reading to her from The Big Book of Children’s Bible Stories. It had been a long day for the Littles, as they had finally found a suitable obstetrician in Morganville and Kate had visited him for the first time that afternoon. They both warmed right away to Dr. Frank Bullard, a British gentleman with longish salt-and-pepper hair and a jovial attitude that—had the doctor not been such a natural extrovert and genuinely likeable sort—might have seemed out-of-place in the examination room. Even Kate laughed at his frequent jokes while her feet were up in stirrups, and David stood there chatting with him as if the two stood in a bar over drinks. When all was said and done Kate seemed satisfied that Dr. Bullard would offer her the best possible care for the last six weeks of her pregnancy, that he was the best replacement for Dr. Melznick that they would find in Morganville.
At last, after night’s cloak swallowed the day and it
was time for bed, Kate claimed to feel a bit under the weather after all that poking and prodding, said she planned to turn in early. She asked David if he would tuck Becca in for the night.
Though such things were fiction to David—or, at best, mere parables toward teaching children basic values—he had no problem reading to Becca from the book of Bible stories. Becca always enjoyed them, and he would do anything to make his daughter happy. Truth be told, he enjoyed the stories himself, for what they were worth.
Tonight, however, Becca seemed to have other things on her mind. They’d already read the story of Joseph and his Coat of Many Colors, but Becca seemed only partially attentive. David moved on to the tale of Jonah and the Whale, but was just a few paragraphs into that story when he stopped and stared at his daughter. He closed the book, but kept his thumb in the middle to keep his place.
“Okay, Becca,” he said, “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” the child replied, but she had never been a very good liar. The truth lurked in her troubled expression.
“Come on, Little One. Something’s bothering you. Fess up.”
A minute or so of silence, then: “Daddy...why don’t you love Mommy’s baby?”
David stopped, speechless, and just sat there staring at his daughter for several seconds. God, how he loved her, and her question stabbed into his soul like a million daggers. Her golden curls spread out on her pillow as she looked up at him from beneath the soft glow of her bedside lamp, waiting for an answer.
“What makes you say that, Becca? Did Mommy tell you that?”
“No.”
“Tell me the truth, sweetie. I’m not going to get mad.”
“I am telling you the truth, Daddy.”
“So why would you think that?”
“I can just tell, Daddy. You don’t love Mommy’s baby.”
David bit at his lower lip nearly hard enough to draw blood. He took a deep breath. “Becca, listen. There are...things that happen when you grow up that you can’t control. But you have to make the best of the situation. Mommy and Daddy, we want a baby, but this baby...”