by Curran, Tim
Mike crawled off towards the hedges.
One of the girls came after him.
He tripped her up and punched her twice in the face, feeling her lips mash against the teeth below. She went down but not before laying his face open with her nails in four red stripes.
Mike ran off.
He looked back once, knowing his brother was beyond help.
The woman and the girls were poking Matt with their forks and jabbing him with their knives. He was making a hoarse bleating sound, but he was all used up. He barely moved. The woman and the girls were spattered with blood. It stood out in bright, vibrant contrast to their pale faces.
As Mike ran off, he saw the woman hike up her sundress and piss on his brother, scenting him with territorial pheromones.
Marking her kill…
22
For the longest time, there were only the sounds of shovels scraping concrete, of things popping and snapping and dripping. The kid was stuck to the concrete and it took some work for them to shovel him free. It was back-breaking labor, all right, messy, dirty, stinking work. But under Warren’s direction, they finally got the kid’s body into the wheelbarrow and by then they were sweating and filthy and not in the best of moods. Then they stood there in sweat-stained and gore-streaked uniforms, not saying anything, just looking at the stain on the sidewalk and the red sprawl of arms and legs spilling over the sides of the wheelbarrow.
“That’s it,” Warren said, studying his pink-stained hands. “That’s it.”
“Now what?” Shaw said to him, his fat face beaded with sweat.
Kojozian smeared blood over his chest.
A crowd had gathered to watch—men, women and even children—and they pressed in close as they dared, not really amused or horrified or suffused with any other emotion you would readily expect. Others had came, sure, but they got out of there right away when they saw what was going on and maybe when they saw how that crowd looked, what was in their eyes and, more importantly, what wasn’t. Their eyes were dead, distant moons that looked and watched, but did not seem to see. Some of the men pulled off cigarettes and a few of the women held babies. Many were naked. Many had painted arcane symbols on their chests. They admired the X on Kojozian’s face. One old lady had brought her knitting. A little boy had a sucker in his mouth that he slurped on.
“Our uniforms are a mess,” Shaw said. “They smell.”
Warren scratched his head, wondering why that mattered. They were cops. They had to keep the uniforms on, especially the shiny badges. People would know them by these things. Symbols of office, of authority.
Kojozian said, “What do we do with this kid? We just gonna wheel him around all day?”
“Why don’t you dig a hole,” one of the crowd said.
“Sure,” said another. “A hole is where something like that belongs.”
“Plant flowers on top so it looks nice,” said the old lady with the knitting.
But Warren explained to them that this was police business, official business, and you just couldn’t go burying a dead kid anywhere you wanted. There were rules and regulations to be followed. Rituals. Yes, rituals that must be observed. They just didn’t understand.
“I say we find out where he lives and bring him over there,” Kojozian suggested.
Warren shrugged. “Yeah, that might be the thing to do. Whoever he belongs to will like that, don’t you think?”
Kojozian grinned. “It’s the least we can do.”
The kid who was working the sucker stepped forward. “That’s Ryan Soames. He delivers our paper. I know where he lives. It’s just a block over.”
“Okay, kid,” Warren said, “lead the way.”
Kojozian pushed the wheelbarrow down the sidewalk, the kid out in front, marching like he was in a parade. Behind them, the crowd plodded along. They were all excited to get to the kid’s house. This was really gonna be something…
23
After Ray Hansel and Paul Mackabee of the State Police CSI left Greenlawn High School and Principal Bejamin Shore and the crime scene in general, they drove through the town, trying to get a feel for it. And what amazed them most was that they couldn’t.
The town felt…what?
Hansel wasn’t sure exactly, but almost blank, empty, deserted. The way a ghost town would feel, the sense that it was unoccupied. That you were the only thing in it. And that didn’t make much sense because he saw people out in the streets walking, washing their cars, shopping, women pushing baby strollers and men leaning on the backs of pickup trucks, chatting, as men will do. There was life, there were people, but why could he not feel them? Although it made absolutely no sense on the surface, Greenlawn was like a town peopled by mannequins, dummies. Things that looked like people, pretended to be people, but were not people.
You be careful with that, Hansel told himself, you be real careful. There’s something wrong here and you know it. If all goes to hell as you are suspecting it will, there’s going to be need of a few clear, clean heads that can do some thinking.
“Don’t know about you, Ray,” Mackabee said, “but I’m getting a chill right up my spine.”
“Me, too.”
They listened silently to the squawk coming over the radio and it did not allay their fears much. There were a couple of old houses burning on Water Street on the north side. A couple kids had drowned in the Green. Lots of domestic disturbances. A couple of assaults. A child had gone missing after school. And there had been no less than three reported suicides within the hour. All this in Greenlawn. Whatever this was, it was building, gaining momentum.
Maybe if it had just been here and not the rest of the country they might have felt a little relieved. But it was everywhere and that scared the shit out of both men.
Hansel thought: Nowhere to run. No matter how bad it gets here, there’s nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. No safe harbor. One town will be just as insane as the next.
Jesus.
He drove downtown and pulled up before the police station, a tall and narrow slab of pale brick. He stood there on the sidewalk, sensing things that he did not like.
An old man walked past and his eyes were filled with murder.
A woman walked by holding a little girl’s hand and there was something almost synthetic about the expressions on their faces.
“I’m gonna go grab a cup of coffee across the street,” Mackabee said and from the way he said it, the idea of that disturbed him.
Hansel nodded. “Keep your eyes open. Watch yourself. I’m gonna go see Bobby. See what he has to say.”
Sighing, Hansel went directly upstairs to Bobby Moreland’s office. Moreland was the chief of the city police. He was a fat, funny man who seemed to know just about everyone in town on sight. Some said he would advance soon into politics.
Hansel found him sitting behind his desk, sipping coffee. He was still large, but there was no humor in those eyes and certainly no laughter wanting to come out of that dour mouth.
“Ray” he said.
Hansel sat down. “What’s going on?”
Moreland was staring at the screen of his laptop. “Things are going mad over in England. There’s a group of hundreds that are currently laying waste to central London…they’re murdering, raping, pillaging. Unbelievable. They’re practicing a scorched earth policy, Ray. Burning and destroying everything. They’re even killing the animals in the stockyards. Slaughtering them. Have you ever heard of such a thing?”
Hansel shrugged, considered it. “Sure. It’s going on in Washington and New York right now. The army is fighting a house-to-house guerilla war in the Bronx and Brooklyn. Baltimore is burning. So is St. Louis. Cleveland is a war zone. Dallas and New Orleans are so bad that they sent in the Marines. Except, from what I’m hearing, discipline has broken down and scattered bands of Marines are raiding at will. And did I mention that the governor of California ordered an airstrike on East LA?” Hansel just shook his head. “Civilization is crashing, Bobby. But to be honest, I don
’t really give a shit about those other places. I’m mostly concerned with this state, this county, and Greenlawn in particular at the moment.”
“Well, we have a little bit of everything, as you well know.” Moreland picked up his Styrofoam coffee cup, realized it was empty and set it back down. “I can’t keep a handle on it all. Between my boys, yours, and the county boys, we got our hands full. I keep hoping this is going to die down…but it’s not dying down, Ray. Can you tell me why that is?”
But Hansel just shook his head. “I don’t know. Something has this town, this country, this whole goddamn world, and it squeezing the guts out of it.”
Moreland looked defeated. “My wife…she’s a little soft on religion and all…she thinks…she thinks it’s the Devil. Devil come down to Earth. Armageddon, the Rapture, all that happy horseshit.”
Hansel did not laugh as he might have a week ago. “Well, Bobby, if it was the Devil, then at least we’d have an enemy to fight. Something to go after. But this…shit, there’s no rhyme nor reason. It’s coming down everywhere and there’s no fucking reason for it.”
“Yeah.”
“Wanna hear something funny?”
“Sure, I could use a laugh.”
“Oh, you won’t laugh, trust me.” Hansel got up and went to the window, peered through the Venetian blinds to the streets below. “I see people out there, going about their business, but I don’t feel ‘em. Does that make sense? They’re there, but it’s like they’re not there at all.”
Moreland just nodded. “Town feels empty, don’t it? Things going on, more things than we can ever handle and a lot more we won’t know about for days and days, yet it’s quiet out there. You know? Just quiet.”
“People you see don’t smile, Bobby. They don’t even talk. They just walk around like they’re lost, like they’re trying to find their bearings.”
“Maybe they are.”
Hansel thought so, too. All of them out there were feeling it. Some had been affected by it, many in very devastating ways. But the majority were just confused, trying to make sense. Trying to understand why reality had been unplugged and they were about to fall headlong down a steep incline. One without a bottom.
“I got units that aren’t reporting in,” Moreland said. “That scares me the worse. But what can I do? Call the governor and say that this town needs psychiatric help? How would that sound?”
“Like you were cracking up,” Hansel told him.
“I am.”
“No, not yet you aren’t.”
Moreland studied his hands for a long time and when he spoke, he did not look up and meet the other man’s eyes. “You want to hear a confession, Ray? One that won’t sound so good at all.”
“Sure.”
“I’m scared,” Moreland admitted. “I’m scared like I’ve never been scared in my life. I’m scared for the world. But more than that, I’m scared for Greenlawn.”
But Hansel understood. For he was scared himself. He licked his dry lips, said, “Sad thing is, by the time this is over, Bobby, I’m afraid there won’t be anything left of civilization. Now how’s that for drama? People going crazy, people acting like animals. Six months from now we might be living the way our ancestors did. A world lit only by fire…”
24
When they got over to his house, Louis went upstairs and cleaned up, got a new shirt on. Then he came back down and took a belt of whiskey. It didn’t do him much good, but he figured he was better with it than without.
Michelle still wasn’t home.
She was not answering her cell and Louis was starting to worry. Mainly because when they’d been outside, he could smell smoke like maybe there was a house burning somewhere. Smell smoke and hear more sirens and all that told him that whatever was going on was far from finished. It was still rolling. Maybe gaining momentum.
He picked up his cell and called Farm Bureau Insurance.
The phone rang and rang over there, but nobody picked it up. It was after hours now. Well past closing time. Michelle was not there and neither was anyone else. That meant she was either on her way home or…
Well, he wasn’t going there.
Not yet.
“I wish I knew where my mom was,” Macy said, sitting there on the couch, tense and expectant.
Louis just swallowed. “She’s…she’s probably out shopping or visiting someone.”
“I guess.”
Louis could not look at her.
He walked over to the window by the door and watched the streets, wishing as he’d never wished before to see Michelle’s little Datsun come swinging down the block. But he was disappointed. Not only was Michelle not coming but no one else was either. It was Friday night. People should have been coming and going.
And what is that saying to you, Louis? What exactly do you think that means?
Honestly, he thought it was time for a good panic attack, but that would hardly solve anything. And he had to consider Macy. She was scared and he knew it. Maybe she was sixteen years old, but that was still a kid. He could not go to pieces on her. She needed him and for the first time in his life, Louis had a newfound sense of respect for parents. Because parenting was an awesome responsibility when you actually thought about it. He was worried sick about Michelle, but she was an adult and whatever was happening out there, she was better equipped to handle it than Macy was.
“Listen,” he said. “Do you have any relatives in town? Somewhere your mom might have gone?”
Macy shook her head. “Not really. They all live other places. There’s Aunt Eileen, but she’s way down in Greencastle. She sends a Christmas card every year, but her and mom don’t get along.”
Surprise, surprise. “Anybody else?”
“Um…well, there’s Uncle Clyde. He lives here. Way on the other side of town, but him and mom never talk. I haven’t even seen him in two or three years.”
Louis figured that this Uncle Clyde was family anyway. That was something. Worse came to worse, he could farm Macy off on him. But that was later.
“I got an idea,” Louis said. “Let’s take a ride.”
“A ride?” She brightened a bit.
“Sure. Beats sitting around here staring at each other. Let’s see if we can find Michelle and we’ll keep an eye out for your mom, too.” He shrugged. “Michelle will probably pull in the driveway five minutes after we leave, but at least we’ll be doing something besides twiddling our thumbs.”
“Yeah,” Macy said. “Okay. I just thought of something, though. Mrs. Brackenbury down the street. Sometimes mom goes over there.”
Mrs. Brackenbury was an old lady who lived alone with about twenty cats. She had to be pushing eighty. Her husband had been dead for years. Just her and the cats. Louis had heard about Jillian going over there, not to visit, but to borrow money from the old lady. It was rumored she had quite a pile.
Louis tossed Macy his cell. “Why don’t you give the old gal a ring? I’ll go write Michelle a note.”
Macy pulled back her hair and tightened her pony tail ring, then started punching up Mrs. Brackenbury’s number.
Louis walked into the kitchen, glad to be away from her for a moment.
God, she was a sweet kid, but he felt so responsible for her. He didn’t like that. And mainly because he did not know if he was up to it. Up to watching over anyone in a crisis. He quickly scratched a note to Michelle and hung it on the fridge.
They’d take a drive and at least they’d be able to see what was going on. Something had to be done and quick. He had to tell someone about Jillian’s body over there and then he was going to have to break it to Macy.
But first things first.
He jogged down into the basement and grabbed his tackle box. He took a Schrade lockblade knife out. The blade was six-inches long and razor sharp. He stuck the knife in his pocket. Maybe there would be no trouble out there at all, but you just never knew. If things continued like they had been, Greenlawn was going to be like the deep dark woods come nightfa
ll and you just never knew when the wolves might show when you were on your way to grandmother’s house…
25
Across the street, Dick Starling covered himself in mud.
After roasting his wife’s corpse in the kitchen and feeding on it, he went out into the backyard, feeling the sun on him. It warmed him. He stripped off his filthy clothes which were crusty with bloodstains and danced around, arms upraised, soaking in that sun and feeling its wonder.
The sprinkler was going.
Down on his haunches, tensed, ready to spring, he watched it shooting gouts of water into the air. He was fascinated by it. He honestly had no cognitive recall of setting out the sprinkler that morning to water the flowerbeds. In fact, by that point, he really did not know what a sprinkler was. There was some gray area in his brain associated with it, but he shook it away.
He crept over there on all fours.
The water splashed against him. He liked it. He seized the sprinkler head and brought it to his mouth. As the water pulsed into his face, he licked and gulped at the flow until he was sated. Then he tossed it aside. Blades of grass were stuck to his belly and legs. He liked the way they smelled. He went over to the flowerbeds. The bright colors of the blooms were nice. He snatched an azalea, chewed it, spat out it back out, disgusted by the sweet taste. Then he tore all the flowers up and cast them about.
He did not want flowers.
He wanted mud.
With the sun beating on it, the dark earth of the flowerbeds was warm and mucky. He scooped up handfuls, sniffing each one, and smearing it all over his chest and legs and arms and genitalia. Especially his genitalia. It was warm, thick, and comforting like primordial ooze. He greased his wet hair back with it and painted black bands across his face.
He felt safer then; camouflaged, stealthy.
He grabbed up his bloody axe where he’d left it by the back door. It felt good in his hands. A hunter needed a weapon and this one had already been blooded. On his hands and knees, he crept around the side of the house. He was full now, his belly stuffed with meat. His needs were quite simple: food, shelter, weapons. But there was another desire as well: sex. Since his daughters had not returned, he knew he had to go hunt a woman.