by Ben Farthing
Kate scowled and got in the car.
“I’ll drive through and then meet back up with you.”
“We won’t be a minute,” Cessy said.
She got in the car. “Again. We invite them to leave. If they don’t come, we’ve done all we can.”
“Cessy?” Horror on Kate’s face. “Something’s wrong with Jackson.”
Jackson lay unconscious across the backseat. His tattered pant leg revealed the crescent pattern of bruises from the worm’s bite, now turning black.
Cessy started the engine. Maybe Jackson would prove useful after all. “Wake him up, make sure he’s breathing. He needs a hospital right away.”
“After we get Mom and Dad,” Kate said.
Cessy exhaled. Even a dying man wasn’t enough to get Kate out of harm’s way. “We’re risking Jackson’s life if we don’t go now.”
“We’re killing Mom and Dad if we do.” Cessy backed the car into the road. “They get one chance to get into the car with us. And then we’re gone.”
60
“That’s their car at the diner,” Kate said.
Cessy looked down Main Street, past the pile of bricks, beams, and stuffed animals that used to be the bar. The parking lot at Tapjacks was full. A few people hurried to their cars and drove off, but even from this far away, Cessy could see the small crowd that still filled the diner.
Cessy took a breath. “That’s where this all started, according to Gordon. The good ol’ boys and girls of Hamlin blaming their woes on drug dealers. The people in there won’t be on our side.”
“It’s Mom and Dad,” Kate said. “I’m not leaving them.”
They drove towards the diner. Cessy considered turning around and driving out of town. But she wouldn’t have put it past Kate to jump out of the car.
“This isn’t going to be as simple as walking into Mom and Dad’s house and asking them to leave. The people in there will be Lockler devotees.”
“Mom and Dad will listen to reason,” Kate said. “Well, Dad will, and Mom will listen to Dad.”
“I’d have said the other way around. Mom’s more likely to listen to reason.” Cessy shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. If I’d thought to switch on the child locks on your door, I’d drive straight out of here right now.”
“They’re your parents, too.”
“I talked to them yesterday. I saw Mom today. They’re not like you remember. I mean, they’re still Mom and Dad, but Mom and Dad paranoid and hateful.”
“You don’t stop loving somebody just because they’ve made mistakes.”
“Mistakes? How many people are dead because of those mistakes? They might not have pulled the trigger, but they were part of the mob egging the murderers on.” Cessy stumbled over her words. “You know what? Believe what you want. I’m taking you to them, because I won’t let you die here. You’re not going to convince me that we actually have a duty to them.”
Kate turned to check on Jackson and mumbled to herself, “Who said anything about duty?”
Cessy drove toward Tapjacks. “You’re doing the talking. We walk in the front--stay at the front; don’t let anybody between us and the door--you give your speech to Mom and Dad. The second I say it’s too dangerous, we leave. You understand?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not kidding around. I’ll drag you out of there.” Cessy was confident her aching back, throbbing knee, and oozing gut would win against Kate’s three-day malnourishment.
Trucks filled the Tapjacks lot and lined the road a half-block in either direction.
Cessy double parked.
An old woman she didn’t recognize hurried out of the diner, got in her car, and drove off.
The rats were fleeing the ship.
Cessy looked back at Jackson. “Is he still breathing?”
Jackson’s eyelids twitched like he was dreaming. He mumbled and moaned like it was a nightmare. If he’d been infected somehow by the bite from the worm, maybe they should be worrying about quarantine. Cessy might need to dump him before they fled the valley. She’d have to cuff Kate for that to ever be an option.
“Leave him for now.” Cessy got out of the car.
Kate followed. “There they are, back corner.”
Through the windows, Cessy saw the citizens of Hamlin.
In the booth closest to the door, Chuck and Paulina Davies, the model citizens who’d lifted themselves by their bootstraps to move down from Rag Hill, and who’d survived the grief of losing a teenage daughter to suicide.
Sharing a booth with them, Paulina’s sister, Brenda Watkins. She’d also lost family, but more recently, and she was more to blame.
Others who Cessy recognized but couldn’t name, and more who Cessy’d never seen before.
Mom sat at the counter in the back corner. Dad stood next to her, addressing the diner patrons.
Cessy grabbed the door handle. “Ready?” she asked Kate.
Kate bit her lip. She leaned on Cessy for support. “If I get lightheaded, you might need to take over for me.”
“I’ll do what I can.” She had three rounds left in the revolver.
“Then let’s bring Mom and Dad home.”
Cessy opened the door and followed Kate inside.
61
Cessy had to grab Kate’s arm to keep her from going straight to Mom and Dad. “Nobody between us and the door.”
Forty faces turned to the newcomers. Confusion, recognition, then anger. Their hate was an odd contrast to the bright colors and shiny tabletops of the diner.
Lockler’s broadcast formed a baseline of noise over which the patrons had been arguing. They grew silent at seeing Cessy and Kate, leaving only static-laden anger.
“...stay true to your convictions, and that’ll set you apart from the vermin...”
“There’s a side door, too,” Kate whispered.
“Stick to the plan.” Cessy squeezed Kate’s arm, reminding her little sister that she’d spent fifteen years in the gym, training her body specifically for situations like this.
Brenda Watkins pointed a crooked finger. She had Valerie’s soft jawline, but her leering eyes were devoid of Valerie’s compassion. “They’re probably the vermin what’s trying to destroy Hamlin.”
Mumbles of agreement.
“No!” Mom’s shrill cry silenced her neighbors. “Kate, why are you in Hamlin? Cessy, we told you she wasn’t here, so you went and brought her here?”
“I’ve been here over a week,” Kate said. “I’m here to help you.”
“Look outside,” Brenda Watkins said. “Look at what they’re doing to our town.”
Dad’s concerned voice rose over the angry murmurs. “Kate, why don’t you come over here with me and your mother. You too, Cessy.”
Cessy squeezed Kate’s arm harder. That was the woman who just yesterday came at her with a garden trowel. The man who’d refused to even step outside as Sheriff Miller carted his daughter off. Mom and Dad had known what was happening to people, and they still let themselves believe Sheriff Miller wouldn’t do it to their daughter.
Cessy accepted the weight in her gut; there was no shelter at her parents’ side.
Kate leaned on Cessy. “Please. Mom. Dad. Let’s talk about this somewhere private. Come with us.”
Chuck Davies, who’d been staring at Cessy, finally said, “I know you. You’re the one who killed my Marissa. Not happy hurting my family, had to come back and rip apart Hamlin, too?”
“The hell are you talking about?” Cessy was done biting her tongue. “I came here to find my sister. That chaos out there, you brought it on yourselves.”
A gray-haired overweight man she didn’t recognize yelled, “You can tell they’re vermin because they won’t take responsibility for themselves.”
Mom shrieked. “My daughter is not vermin!” Her second outburst didn’t do as much to quiet the patrons.
Cessy felt strength drain away. “Oh.” My daughter. Not daughters. Mom may have come at her in a moment of pas
sion, but deep down, she was still supposed to be Mom. Cessy had prioritized Kate’s life over her parents’, but she’d done so accepting that the guilt would gnaw at her the rest of her life. Mom had become paranoid and hateful and willfully ignorant, but she was still supposed to be Mom. She wasn’t supposed to scream an emotional defense of only one of her daughters. “Time to go,” she whispered.
“Not yet,” Kate hissed.
“I’m calling it.”
“You said if it got dangerous, not if Mom said something that hurt your feelings.”
Cessy recoiled. “These people are one rope away from becoming a lynch mob.”
“Daddy,” Kate pleaded. “Please come outside with us.”
“Don’t trust them,” Brenda Watkins said. “Look down the street. They knocked down the bar. They’re the ones who’ve been destroying our homes.”
“That’s absurd.” Cessy said. “Can’t you hear the houses collapsing right now? We’re standing right here.”
But the Tapjack’s patrons weren’t having it.
A tall man in his fifties stood up from his booth. He was younger than most in the diner, and had the strong body of someone who worked his small farm, a rarity in this town. “Hamlin won’t be great again until we get rid of this vermin.”
Cessy pushed open the door and pulled Kate with her.
Mom ran towards them. The tall man blocked her path. “You’re being biased,” he told her.
Kate jerked on Cessy’s grip. “Let me go!” Her strength surprised Cessy, but she held tight.
Dad came at the tall man. “That’s my wife you’re pushing around.”
The tall man shoved Dad, who fell backwards, caught himself. A bone snapped in his wrist. Dad’s clenched jaw shook.
Kate grabbed the door frame. “We have to help them.”
Mom helped Dad up. “You’re crazy!” she yelled at the tall man. “No one loves Hamlin more than us. We grew up here. We’re not biased.”
“Your kids are vermin.”
Cessy pulled on Kate.
“I know my own daughters,” Dad said.
Cessy hesitated.
Chuck Davies stood up, slowly, stiffly. Marissa’s father was shorter than his daughter, but he had the same tight mouth that filtered his anger at the world. “You’re telling me, a person can bully my depressed daughter until my little girl hangs herself, and that person’s a saint?”
Mom tried to get past the tall man, but Chuck Davies joined him to block her path.
“They’re leaving,” she said. “We’ll make sure they leave town.”
“Kate’s never hurt any of you,” Dad said. “No one here possibly thinks she’s vermin.”
Cessy’s shoulders slumped. She hadn’t expected her parents to leap to her defense, but it stung more than she’d anticipated.
“She’s helping the other one destroy Hamlin,” Chuck said.
Murmurs of agreement.
Another crash from outside. The floor shook, vibrating Cessy’s shoeless foot. Somewhere behind the diner, a house collapsed. Dust went up. Thick shadow hung like smoke in the air. Silty river water dripped from the low cloud.
Brenda Watkins craned her neck to see out the window. “That was my street.” She turned on Cessy and Kate. “Was that my house?”
“If it was, you’d deserve it,” Cessy said.
Brenda gasped, probably mimicking a scandalized southern belle on TV. And just like the southern matrons in the murder mysteries, this woman was a murderer. This whole diner was full of murderers.
“It’s not us,” Kate screamed. “Look around. We just got here this week. How long have people been disappearing?”
“People that you all wanted disappeared,” Cessy spat.
Kate elbowed her. “You’ve all made a terrible mistake. Lockler doesn’t care about Hamlin. The Maple Table hates just as much as Lockler, only they do it with a smile. They’re a lure so something else can feed on you.”
Chuck Davies started towards Kate, flexing his meaty fingers. “Our town is under attack. It’s been that way for years. Lockler understands that.”
Cessy drew the pistol. She reached past Kate to aim it at Chuck’s chest.
He stopped. “Go ahead. Kill someone else in my family.”
“Please,” Kate said. “Get out of town. This thing that sent you Lockler, the thing that’s been taking people, it’s got what it wanted, and it’s leaving. On its way out, it’s destroying the town. Look around!”
The patrons looked out the windows. On Main Street, the only collapsed building was the bar. But in the air above and behind the shops, at least six dispersed dust clouds had left behind thick drifts of shadow, which dripped detritus that fell out of sight.
“You can see something’s not right,” Kate pleaded. “Get out of town before it takes you all. Mud River Road is clear, east of town. You’ll have to cross a creek, but if you’ve got a truck, you can do it.”
Chuck Davies looked at the tall man. The younger man nodded, and went out the side door.
“Time to go,” Cessy said. “Before he blocks the road back up.”
“You have to get out,” Kate begged.
One elderly couple--Cessy thought the woman might have been her tenth-grade biology teacher--slipped out the side door. The rest of Tapjack’s patrons refused eye contact with Kate.
“Mom? Dad?”
“You two go on and get out town.” Dad sat on the tile floor, rubbing his wrist. “We’ll give you a call later.”
“It’ll kill you,” Kate wailed.
“You can’t just throw a rat out of your house,” Chuck said. “It’ll come right back in.”
“We’ll make sure they leave.” Mom hurried past Chuck before he could stop her.
Cessy lowered the pistol.
“Honey, no,” Dad said. “Hamlin is our home.”
Cessy let go of Kate, so her little sister could throw her arms around their mother.
“Please come with us, Daddy,” Kate said.
“I’m not leaving the town I helped build.”
Cessy rolled her eyes. The town had been a hundred years old by the time Dad was born. The vanity that had permeated Hamlin was startling.
“Just to the edge of town,” Mom said. “We’ll make sure the girls leave, then we’ll come right back here and work things out with Chuck.”
Dad shook his head, but he climbed to his feet and sauntered to the door.
“Are we going to let vermin walk away like this?” Chuck asked his fellow patrons. “The very vermin responsible for our town’s decline?”
The patrons growled disgust.
Another house collapsed, loud enough to rattle the windows. The ground shook, and this time it didn’t stop. Plates and silverware rattled.
Cessy shepherded Mom and Dad out the door. Kate stayed in the doorway. “You all need to leave. Everything Lockler has told you has been to rile you up. You’re being manipulated.”
She was met with vulgar jeers.
“Please! The thing under the mountain will kill you.”
Brenda Watkins cackled. “Next she’ll tell us the aliens are gonna get us.”
Kate wailed frustration, but she followed Cessy outside.
“Stop them!” Chuck cried. But with the tall man gone, the believers were a geriatric crew. They’d condemned “vermin” to death, never thinking about the executioner. And now the executioner was slithering its satiated girth out of Hamlin, ignoring its ignorant devotees’ condemnations.
The door swung shut. Its bell jingled.
The cool air of the diner was replaced by the afternoon August heat. The sun instantly warmed Cessy’s neck.
She kept the gun trained on the door. Tapjack’s patrons stayed in their seats. Brenda Watkins and Paulina Davies stared daggers at Cessy through the glass.
Cessy turned to find Mom helping Kate into the empty backseat of the 4Runner. Dad stood stiff, staring down the street.
“Where’s Jackson?” Cessy asked.
&n
bsp; Kate looked up, her expression full of fear. She pointed back towards the Sheriff’s office.
A block away, Sheriff Miller staggered toward them. The sidewalk beneath him and the grass and asphalt to either side were black with swarming perforations. He stumbled and caught himself like a man walking through the surf. His ankles sank through the sidewalk, then were lifted above. He walked on the worm.
Limping out to meet him, was Jackson.
62
Liquid shadow dripped down Jackson’s leg. He limped past shuttered shops on Main Street, under the sweltering sun and the damaged Black Gold Peak. He pointed his VP9 at Sheriff Miller, but hadn’t fired yet.
Sheriff Miller walked to meet Jackson. He waded ankle-deep through the sidewalk, then was lifted three feet off the ground. He walked on deep gray wormflesh that pushed away Cessy’s gaze like a resisting magnet.
The ground rumbled. The worm’s burrowing cracked and lifted the sidewalks and streets. Brick walls crumbled.
The worm made a noise like nails on a chalkboard played at quarter speed.
Perforations swarmed over Sheriff Miller’s uniform and skin. They were concentrated around the bullet holes in his chest and by his nose. They slid over the huge serpentine body upon which he walked, and Cessy considered that maybe they were parasites, but she’d shared the worm’s mind momentarily, which was long enough to know that nothing about it could be categorized using Cessy’s understanding.
Black spurts marked the sidewalk behind Jackson. “You killed Olivia,” he screamed. He fired. The round smacked into the worm’s side. The pistol’s clap echoed twice off the mountains before being drowned by the low scraping of the worm.
“Go help him!” Kate yelled.
Mom shut the back door on her. “Cessy, get in the car.”
Dad reached for Cessy’s arm. “He’s vermin. Let Sheriff Miller deal with him.”
This was Jackson buying them time, just like Cessy had planned on. But as Kate screamed in the backseat, Cessy didn’t like the feeling in her gut. She’d lied to him in the mine, told him that his father had purposely murdered Olivia. She’d poisoned Jackson’s memory of his father. That felt worse than abandoning her parents. She had to prioritize rescuing Kate, and accept that some decisions might leave her feeling guilty until the day she died, but it was piling on and getting heavy.