by Dan Wells
“Pay attention when I’m talking to you,” said Derek, and I focused my eyes and saw him right in my face, so close I could feel the flecks of spit when he shouted. “There’s three of us and one of you,” he said. His voice came at me through a cloud of beer and halitosis. “How you gonna stop us from taking whatever we want from your little girl here?”
Which one should I start on? I bent down and pulled out my knife, and all three of them backed up in a rush.
I felt a hand on my arm, and looked down to see Brooke’s fingers, travel stained and fragile. “You’re not Potash,” she said. Or was it Marci? Or was it one of the others? The thought made me angry, not being able to tell the difference, and I took a step forward, longing to finish the kill.
“He’s friggin’ nuts,” said Derek.
Brooke’s finger’s tightened on my arm, and I heard her whisper: “You’re not trained.”
Corey’s eyes were wide. “Trained?”
That’s what she’d meant about Potash—not that I wasn’t a killer, but that I wasn’t a trained fighter. This was Potash’s knife and he could have handled three teenage jerks without even breaking a sweat, but I couldn’t. I had no combat training, no hope for a direct confrontation. My style was slow and methodical: to wait, to find a weakness, and then to exploit it with no warning and no chance for a counterattack. I couldn’t win this fight with a knife, and if I used a gun it wouldn’t … I felt my cold rage fading. A gun wouldn’t have the same satisfaction, the visceral thrill that I needed this to have. I felt my emotions receding, backing out of the calm, passing down through the anger, returning to normal. I wasn’t going to hurt them. She had said exactly what I needed, in exactly the way that worked—not protesting, not appealing to rightness or honor, but a simple, pragmatic statement of ability.
“Thank you,” I said. I looked up at the three. “You can go now.”
“What’s wrong with you?” asked Paul.
“Let’s go,” said Corey, and the other two followed like obedient dogs. I’d assumed that Paul was the leader and Derek was the loudmouth buddy, but now I could see that Corey had been in charge all along, quietly manipulating everything the other two had done. It concerned me that I hadn’t seen it. We watched them go, first backing away, then turning and muttering among themselves as they walked the rest of the way to the fence. Derek turned around and shouted a final insult, cussing us out as the others went through the fence, then he followed them out.
“Come over here,” I whispered to Marci, and we walked away from the building, away from the closed wooden gate we’d been standing near. Sure enough, one last beer can came sailing over the fence, then another, then a whole barrage of cans and rocks and gravel, all targeting the spot we’d been standing. After a moment the volley stopped, and I heard them snicker as they ran away.
“Put the knife away,” said Marci. I realized I was still holding it, my knuckles white around the grip.
I looked at it, not knowing what to say. “I wanted to kill them.”
“I know.”
“They were going to hurt you, and then I was going to kill them,” I said, though I knew it wasn’t true. Protecting her had been the impetus, but then the sheer love of death had taken over and Brooke or Marci or whoever it was had stopped being a reason and become an excuse. I wanted to kill them because I wanted to kill. I wanted to stab and slice and destroy.
“We can’t stay here,” said Marci.
“We have to find Attina.”
“I mean here,” she said, gesturing around us, “in this theater. They might come back when we’re asleep, or they might even go to the police.”
“Drunk teenagers don’t go to the police,” I said, still feeling some kind of weird buzz from the experience. An adrenaline high I was only slowly coming down from, and which a part of me didn’t want to let go.
I had them right here.…
I needed to light a fire.
“But the police might find them,” said Marci. “If they get picked up for drunk and disorderly conduct or disturbing the peace or whatever thing they don’t want to get in trouble for, the first thing they’ll do is use us as a distraction, and it will work, because two out-of-town squatters with a big scary knife are exactly the kind of thing that a cop is going to pursue immediately.”
“If he believes them,” I said, though I knew she was right.
“We’re not the kind of story three drunk teens would make up,” said Marci, and I nodded.
“I know.” I put the knife away and started walking toward the hole in the fence. “Let’s see what else we can find to sleep under. Another tree.”
“Another?”
“We slept under a tree last night.”
Marci nodded Brooke’s head. “I remember,” she said, but I couldn’t tell if she did or not. Brooke tried to cover her gaps in memory; maybe Marci did the same. I crawled through the hole, and in the few brief seconds before she followed me, I put my face against the wood of the fence, closing my eyes, trying to know what to do. As if knowing were an act of will. I couldn’t understand her, I couldn’t help her, and now I couldn’t even protect her—and if I ever did, that protection might cause more problems than whatever danger I was trying to save her from.
She deserved more than I could give her.
“John?”
I turned around, and she was standing there, ready to go. I started walking, and she hurried to catch up, reaching for my hand as we walked. I pulled it away, and we walked in silence. After a few blocks we saw a low chain-link fence around a big backyard and what looked like a vegetable garden. I climbed over it as quietly as I could, keeping Marci and Boy Dog in sight, and crept through the furrows looking for food. I stole a pair of tomatoes and three fat summer squash, and we ate them as we walked farther, looking for a safe hiding place to spend the night. We ended up in the narrow space between a sagging fence and an old wooden shed—not a dead end, because I hated being trapped, but the ground was full of undisturbed weeds so I was pretty sure no one would come blundering through in the morning. There didn’t seem to be any animal tracks or droppings, so I figured the owners didn’t have a pet, either. I set up my backpack as an armrest and sat with my back against the shed. I wasn’t sleepy but I was exhausted—my body bone weary, my mind too frantic to relax. Would we be safe here? Would we be safe in the town at all? Where was Attina, and how would we find him, and how would we get to know him well enough to kill him? How long would Marci stay, and which would hurt me more: Marci leaving, or Brooke never coming back? I had to take care of—
Marci sat down next to me—not just sat, but snuggled, pressing her thigh against mine, her side to my side, pulling up my arm so she could rest her shoulder in the crook of it and her head on my chest. “I missed you,” she murmured.
“I missed you too,” I said. I could feel the warmth of her body on mine, acutely aware of the exact location of every part: her left hand on my leg, just inside the knee, her right arm on my wrist, the perfect curve of her hip pressing close to my leg. She turned her head, and her breast brushed my chest, her mouth was just inches from mine.
She leaned in closer and her lips brushed my chin.
Brooke’s lips.
I pulled my head back, turning away from her. “We can’t do this.”
“I haven’t kissed you in two years—”
“It’s not your body,” I said. My arms were shaking and I balled my hands into fists to try to steady them. “It’s not right.”
She let out a breath, long and slow and sad. “Did you…? I guess it makes sense that you moved on after two years, right? You and Brooke, now, I guess?”
“It’s not like that.”
“Somebody else?”
“It’s not your body,” I said. “It’s you inside of it, maybe, but it’s Brooke. If I kiss you I’d be kissing Brooke.”
“And you’ve never kissed her?”
“Of course I’ve never kissed her,” I said, “She’s a … I don’t kn
ow. Can’t you see?”
“You’re right,” she said, pulling away from my side. “You’re right, it’s like … date rape or something. It’s like she’s unconscious and we’re using her body.”
“Yeah.”
She pulled her knees up to her chin, wrapping her arms around them. “Well this sucks.”
“I know.”
“I’ve been waiting two years, and now you’re here, but…”
“But you’re not,” I said gently. “Not really.”
“This is stupid,” she said. “This is stupid and it sucks and I hate it. I can’t even … this isn’t even my body, these aren’t even my legs or my arms.” She let go of her knees, swinging her arms wide, like she’d touched something that repulsed her. She stared at her knees for a minute and then stood up, shaking her hands back and forth in a blur. “How do I even walk around like this? How do I even live?”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know, and it’s not—” She pressed her hand into her face, then pulled them quickly away. She was crying. “It’s not your fault,” said Marci. She was silent for a long time, and I hugged myself to stay warm. “How do you sleep, doing all of this? Knowing what you know?”
I shrugged and looked up at the narrow band of stars between the shed and the fence. “Most of the time I don’t.”
7
Dillon seemed larger during the day, probably because the light helped fill in the background, adding barns and hills to the middle distance, making the whole thing seem less isolated. The people helped as well. It wasn’t exactly a bustling city, but there were cars on the roads, and people at the stores and churches. I realized that it must be Sunday and wondered if Brooke would insist on going to church, like she sometimes did. As we walked down the only major road in town, looking at the one stoplight far in the distance, we passed a church with a slowly filling parking lot. Brooke didn’t say a thing and I realized she must be somebody else right now.
“Who are you?” I asked.
Brooke raised her eyebrow. “You mean, like, philosophically?”
“I mean, are you Brooke or … Lucinda, or whoever?”
A look of hurt flashed across her face, followed almost immediately by a sinking dejection; she looked down, her shoulders drooped, and she took a slow breath. “Sorry, I should have realized that would be a common question. But it’s still me, it’s still Marci.”
I felt relief and despair and confusion, all at once, and tried to hide my grimace. “You’ve never been one person that long. Not since Fort Bruce, I mean.”
“Dr. Trujillo helped keep her grounded,” said Marci, then stopped in place for a moment, frowning. “Who’s Dr. Trujillo?”
“He was our therapist in Fort Bruce,” I said. “Looks like you’re sharing memories, like we wondered last night.”
I didn’t know how to react to the idea that Marci was here long term. It had been hard enough to come to grips with her sudden appearance, and eventually I’d just given up and focused on solvable problems instead: how to get into the theater, how to get rid of the boys, where to find a new place, what to eat. When Marci had finally gone to sleep I’d laid awake for hours, clenching my fists and trying to sort through the situation, but nothing made sense. I didn’t know what I wanted or how to get it; things had been so much easier when all I’d had to do was plan the next kill. Death was so much easier than life. It made me feel weak to prefer the easy one. I couldn’t even light a fire to ease my tension because I didn’t want those boys or the cops or the gardener to come looking for us. Now it was morning, and I’d hoped the problem of Marci’s presence had solved itself, but here she was, and I was at war with myself. I couldn’t live with her but I never wanted her to leave.
And all the while, Brooke was trapped inside, looking out.
Marci raised Brooke’s hand to a sudden breeze, feeling the cushion of air as it swept past our faces. It would be hot today, I could tell by the sky, but the morning was still comfortable. “I like Brooke’s memories,” said Marci, walking forward again. I kept pace with her, watching the town carefully for signs of trouble—the last thing we needed was for Corey or Paul or Derek to see us. Marci mused out loud: “She had a good life, with a good family. And I mean, so did I, but … now I have more, you know? Now I can remember my happiness and hers, without letting go of either one. It’s like … watching a really happy movie.”
“Brooke’s life hasn’t been a very happy movie,” I said.
“Not all of it,” Marci agreed. “But more of it than you think. We’re eighteen years old and she’s only been chased by demons for three of those years. And there’s gaps in the middle when things were calm, and she … got to be with you.”
“I didn’t mean to drag her into this—”
“I like it,” said Marci, reaching for my hand. “I only knew you—only really knew you—for a few months. She’s known you for years and spent every day with you for the last two of them.”
I had never been a physical person, I was leery of personal contact, but when I’d finally held Marci’s hand all those years ago, it had been one of the simplest, most comforting things I’d ever felt. I looked down now at her hand in mine and tried to conjure up those same emotions, but it was still wrong, just like last night. I pulled my hand away. She looked sad, or I thought she did. I wondered how I looked.
“We need to find a bus station,” I said, trying to bring my mind back to more pressing issues. “I seriously doubt they have one in a town this small, but you never know. Normally I’d ask in a bank, because there are fewer repercussions that way, but nothing’s going to be open on a Sunday.”
“So let’s ask back there,” said Marci, turning and pointing at the church.
“We can’t just ask anybody,” I said, realizing I would have to explain my system. “People in small towns—”
“Are nice,” said Marci.
“Not to outsiders.”
“The ones in a church will be.”
“Why?” I asked. “Because they’re in a church?”
“Have you ever been to church?”
“I lived upstairs from a chapel,” I said. “I can quote the Bible all day. But people don’t go to—”
“Only the verses about death,” said Marci.
I stopped, staring at her. “What?”
“You can only quote the verses about death,” Marci repeated. “And, I assume, resurrection, which is really the same category.”
I wanted to argue with her, but for every counter I thought of, I was able to prove myself wrong before I even said it out loud. Could I quote a verse that wasn’t about death? No. Weren’t those the only verses in the Bible? Of course not; there had to be other verses about other topics, I’d just only ever heard the ones they use in funerals. For a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out. Death. “I’ve never thought about religion enough to take it seriously,” I said. “But I don’t remember you being religious, either.”
“Christmas and Easter,” said Marci. “That’s enough to know that the people in a church are good people.”
“But they don’t go to church because they believe it,” I said. “They go because someone died, or because it’s a holiday, or because they’re a pastor and it’s their job.”
“Is it really that hard for you to accept that some people actually believe in something?” asked Marci. “You believe in things—big, build-your-life-around-them things, just like they do. You believe in the Withered. And death.”
“Death’s not a religion.”
“It is for you.”
I scowled and changed the subject. “You haven’t been driven out of a dozen little towns just like this,” I said. “Brooke and I have. Look at us: we’re filthy, we smell horrible, and even those idiots last night could tell we were homeless—what is an adult going to do the instant he sees us like this?”
“Ask if we need help,” Marci insisted.
“And then call the nearest soc
ial worker,” I said. “Which means police, which means official reports, which means the FBI finds us.”
“You just don’t know the right people to talk to,” said Marci, and she pulled me back down the street. “Come on, John, this is a church. Have faith.”
I followed her slowly, resolved to run at the first sign of trouble. We had to stay in the town long enough to find a Withered; we had to lay low and arouse as little suspicion as possible, and I’d already threatened three guys with a knife. We needed to contact the locals, but how much contact could we afford?
The church sat on a corner lot, fronting onto the main street, which we were on, and a small cross street ran alongside it. The parking lot was on the far side from us, by the cross street, and I felt my heart rate speed up as we came around the near fence and saw a handful of people moving from their cars to the building.
“I don’t like this,” I said.
“Trust me,” said Marci.
“I wish you’d let me do this my way,” I said. “Brooke did things my way.”
“No wonder you fell in love with me instead.”
“Don’t say that,” I said, stopping at the corner of the fence.
She looked back at me. “Didn’t you?”
I didn’t want her to assume it, I wanted to say it. I wanted it to be a moment. But I’d only ever said it to her corpse, and saying it to someone who could hear me was something I totally wasn’t ready for.
“I have a system worked out,” I said, changing the subject again. “Exposing ourselves like this feels wrong.”
“That’s because it hurts,” said Marci. “You’re not used to it. It’s risky and that hurts. But sometimes the thing that hurts most is the right thing to do.”