Accidental Evil (21 page)

“Let’s say you saw something,” Mary said. Bruce began to object, but Mary put up her hands to stop him. “The one thing we know for sure, is we don’t know, right? Help will come. Until then, I suggest that we hold tight right here. We’ve got four walls and a roof.”
 

The last thing that Mary wanted was for everyone to go their separate ways. If there really was something dangerous outside, she wanted plenty of help dealing with it. Once Vernon got back, they could all disperse. Until he did, she was vulnerable. Her ankle was in bad shape, and she had one son who was still in shock.
 

“That’s a bad idea,” Gerard said.

The door opened again and John pushed through. As soon as he was through the door, he pushed it closed and moved away. When he turned towards Mary, she caught her breath. He was as white as a sheet.

“John, what’s wrong?”

“Everything,” he said.

They moved John over to the other husband chair, next to Ricky. Louise found him a glass of water. His color came back as he got his breathing under control and sipped the water. Trina put her hand on his shoulder and looked down at his wet clothes.

“You didn’t make it home?” Trina asked.

John shook his head. He looked up at her. “Thank God that Rose took Josie and Ruth shopping.”

He looked down at his glass of water. When he looked up again, he had to swallow several times before he could go on.

“They’re taking them all, but I think…” He couldn’t go on.

Mary had a million questions just based on that sentence fragment, but she held her tongue and waited, like the rest of them. She glanced at George and saw that he was still at his post, looking through the window. That was fine. George didn’t need to see John Endicott looking as frightened as a child.

John whispered his next statement, like he was ashamed of what he had to say. “I thought I saw them take Rose. It wasn’t her, but I thought it was from the back.”

“Start at the beginning, John,” Mary said.

John shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut. His hands trembled so badly that Mary reached for the glass of water. John jerked back from her touch.

“Tell us what happened,” Mary said. She turned to Lily and Sarah. “You girls go watch out the window with George, okay?” The fear that had infected John Endicott was powerful. She didn’t want it spreading to the girls.

He nodded and swallowed one more time. His voice was shaky at first, but as he spoke, it evened out quickly.

[ Trouble ]

“I
MADE
IT
UP
to Farnham’s place before I suspected any trouble. In hindsight, it was strange that there was nobody out on the street. It seemed like everyone just disappeared after the show. When I got to Farnham’s I saw a crowd between the house and the shed. I headed for them, just to see what was going on. They were all looking towards the back yard. I figured there must have been something really interesting going on back there the way they were all focused on it.”

John paused to take another sip of water.

“I got about two steps into the lawn when I stepped on one of them. It was a cellphone, I guess. As soon as I saw that first one, I saw others. I must have seen a dozen of them strewn across Farnham’s lawn. I suppose I looked at the people with fresh eyes. I could imagine all those people gathered to look at something, but it was troubling to think that they all had the idea to drop their phones at the same time on the way. I started to say, ‘Hey there,’ to the people nearest the back. That’s when one of the women fell to her knees. My mother used to like those TV churches on Sunday. It was like that, the way the woman dropped.”

“How many people were there, John?” Mary asked.

He shrugged. “Hard sayin’. If I had to guess, I’d say a hundred.”

“Did you recognize anyone?”

He shook his head. “Not at first. But when that woman fell to her knees, that’s when I thought I saw Rose. I should have known better. I didn’t recognize her shirt or shorts, but the hair and the shape of the woman looked like my Rose. I ran forward and began to press my way into the crowd. People didn’t look at me as I squeezed by them. I only had eyes for Rose—or what I thought was her. I shouted her name as I grabbed her shoulder to turn her. That’s when I saw what they had done.”

John stopped. He slumped down in his chair with the memory. Trina reached forward to comfort him again, but she stopped short of touching him.
 

“It’s okay, John,” Trina said. “She’s shopping with the girls, right? Rose is okay.”

“I wish I could get in touch with her to be sure,” John said.

Mary moved forward to cut off the conversation that John and Trina were having. John looked up to her reluctantly. He knew what she was going to ask.

“John, what was happening with the woman in Farnham’s lawn? Why didn’t you make it home?”

He closed his eyes and took a breath before he could answer. He cringed when he remembered the image of her. When he spoke, his voice was just above a whisper.

“I don’t know what it was, but it was covering her whole face. The tendrils went right into her skin. I could see them pulsing down the front of her neck. I can’t say for sure, but I think it was feeding off of her. It seemed like she was deflating right in front of me. She was withering away as it sucked her dry, pumping her out from the inside.”

“What?” Mary asked. Even she seemed surprised by the anger in her tone.

He reacted to her question as if she had slapped him across the face. His eyes went wide.

“I’m not making it up, Mary. There was a machine clamped to her face. It was sucking the life right out of that woman. I couldn’t see much, but I could tell it wasn’t my Rose. When I turned around, I saw that they all had the things attached to them. On some people, the machine was lashed onto their chest. On the men, it was either on the belly or the groin.”

He swallowed again. He heard his own throat click. He was out of saliva. John took another sip of water.

“And it was sucking out their guts,” Mary stated.

“I never said that,” John said. It came out like a croak.

“Well what did you say?” Mary asked.

John looked to his left when the kid spoke. Until that point, Ricky had seemed barely there.

“I thought it was me,” Ricky said.

“What do you mean, baby?” Mary asked. “What are you saying?”

“I thought I had power. It was using me.”

“Who, Ricky? What are you talking about?” Mary asked.
 

Mary crossed her arms. “This is great,” she said. “George? Any sign of your father yet?” she called. Over at the window, George turned and shook his head. He went back to watching out the window.

“Can I get more water?” John asked. He raised his glass and Louise took it from his hand. She disappeared through a doorway.

“What else did you see, John?” Trina asked.

John shook his head. Louise handed him the refilled glass and he took a gulp.

“Not much. I got away from that group—I don’t even think they knew I was there—and I ran home. There were more of them gathered in Guptill’s lawn. They were down by the water. I slowed down enough to make sure I didn’t recognize anyone, but I didn’t want to get too close. I was afraid that they had one of those machines ready to attach to me.”

“What did you do?” Trina asked.

“I went home, or at least I tried to. My house wasn’t…” John shook his head at the memory. “It wasn’t my house anymore. I came back here because it was the last place I saw people who were actually people.”

“What do you mean?” Trina asked. “About your house?”

“I don’t know what to tell you. It was there, but it was covered in a carpet of these flashing things. I don’t think could have gotten inside. I was afraid that they might latch onto me and then I would become like one of the others.”

“Things?” Bruce asked. “Like what?”

“I don’t know. They were like a moving camouflage. It was like I was looking at my house through rippling water. I don’t know how else to describe it. I threw a cellphone at the side of my house. I suppose I picked it up from Farnham’s lawn and I had been carrying it around without thinking about it. When it hit the wall, for a second I could see my real house. They all flashed different colors. Then it started rippling again.”

“I know what you mean,” Bruce said. Trina looked at him.

[ Information ]

G
ERARD
LISTENED
. H
E
HAD
information, and he had theories, but he didn’t share either. While the wet man talked about his journey, Gerard let his eyes sweep around the shop. He was looking for something black he could stand on if the time came. There was a blanket over near the beach towels. It was a black rectangle with little white crosses that formed constellations. Gerard didn’t know if it was black enough, but it would be worth a shot.

He backed up until his hand rested on the blanket. It might just save his life when the time came.

“Mom!” the kid near the window said. “There’s a woman.”

The mother rushed over as fast as she could on her bad ankle. After confirming what her son saw, the woman with the limp moved to the door and swept it open.

“Peg,” she said. “Get in here.”

The woman who came through looked familiar, but Gerard couldn’t place her. The new woman looked at Gerard and smiled. He was across the shop from her, but the look was so intimate that it felt for a second that they were the only ones there. Their connection was broken as the woman who owned the shop moved between them. They were out of chairs, so she dragged a stool over to the woman.

“Peg, sit down,” someone said. “You look stunned.”

Peg allowed them to push her down to the stool. She didn’t look stunned to Gerard. She looked crafty.

“Where did you come from?” the owner of the shop asked.

“We saw you in the woods,” Ms. Hazard said. “You were running.”

“That’s right,” Mr. Hazard said.

Peg looked over at them and then down as the owner of the shop pushed a glass of water into her hands.
 

“Tell us what happened to you, Peg,” the woman with the bad leg said.

They were hungry for information. Peg smiled and moved her lips. Mary leaned in closer to hear what she was saying. Gerard used the opportunity. He pulled the blanket from the shelf and lowered it slowly to the floor. He spread it out with his foot while he stood there. The woman who owned the shop was very good at blending in to the scenery. She seemed to simply hang back and observe, much like Gerard himself. He kept an eye on her. He didn’t want any of them to guess what he was up to. Gerard glanced down. He had spread the blanket out to a decent area, roughly in a square. He stepped onto the blanket and instantly felt better—more protected. If something happened, he would run. If he couldn’t run, he would crouch right in the middle of his blanket and pray that it was black enough.

[ Recon ]

V
ERNON
D
UNN
RAN
DOWN
the middle of the road until he was beyond the hot dog stand. As soon as the road crossed over the big creek, he darted into the woods. He didn’t need a path. He knew every rock and every tree. He could have found his own land in the middle of the night during a blizzard.

It didn’t take long before he was crouched behind one of those rocks and looking at his own house. He didn’t see anything—not at first. He stared at the house for several minutes, wondering if he was close enough to see. He had expected to find the same bugs that he’d seen all over Hazard’s place. Several of the other houses he had passed shared the same infestation. His house looked perfectly normal. Still, he forced himself to examine every detail of the place while he was still hidden in the woods.

That’s when he saw it. There was a porch roof just under Ricky’s window. The boy went out there sometimes when he needed time to think. Vernon should have stopped him years before. Ricky had been scraping all the gravel from the shingles as he climbed out there. But the boy seemed to need his space. Vernon couldn’t begrudge him that. But he would make Ricky help him re-shingle sometime before he moved out. It was the least Ricky could do.

It wasn’t Ricky out on the porch roof this afternoon, but it was something. It was tucked into the corner, where the wall of the addition met the original wall of the house. That corner marked where the small bathroom started. Sitting on the roof, tucked in there, Vernon saw something shiny and cylindrical. The surface of it was so reflective that it was hard to pick out. The only way he could tell it was there was the curved lines of the siding that were bent around the shape.

Vernon slipped a little to the east so he could get a better look at the thing. There was definitely something shiny and curved there. Vernon had no idea what the thing was, or why it was on his porch roof, but he intended to find out.

He moved through the patch of woods as far as he could and then darted in front of the woodpile until he rounded the corner of the house. He waited next to Mary’s cherry tree. Through the branches, he could see the kitchen window and the back porch. When he was sure there was nothing moving, he continued his circuit of the house. Vernon got back around the front before he saw anything else out of place. There was another one of those cylinders on his front porch. Vernon backed up a dozen paces until he found the place where he had chopped wood a few seasons before. He found what he was looking for. An axe handle had split near the top and he had leaned it against a rock, meaning to collect it and wrap it in tape. Before he got the chance, Mary had given him a new one as an early Christmas gift. The old axe handle had languished there in the yard.
 

Vernon slapped it into his palm. Despite the crack, it felt solid. He advanced on the house.

[ Attack ]

He stopped before climbing the porch steps. He looked at the cylinder. It was waist-high and had a rounded top on it. The whole thing was shiny, like it was made of chrome. Vernon was through investigating. He was ready to
do
something. All the strange events of the day were building up inside him and making him angry. He was ready to act on that anger.