Breeds 2 (19 page)

A pair of T-shirts went inside the bag. She picked out some faded but serviceable jeans, selected two pairs of donated black sweat socks, which were new, and a pair of regular underwear. Picking up underwear for a grown man made her a little uneasy. She certainly wouldn’t want a stranger choosing underwear for her, but an exception had to be made in the case of her unnamed guest. Perhaps he’d remember his name soon. Maybe his amnesia would be lifted by the time she returned home. That was something to hope for. Only then would she get a straight answer about how the guy’s back had miraculously healed. A part of her still wondered if she was in some kind of elaborate hallucination, and he would be gone entirely once she got back home.

But most of her believed he
was
real. That he did save her. That his back
had
healed. And that he needed help. In any case, weird or not, she’d do a favor in return. Get him clothed at least, and turn him over to the shelter. Point him in the right direction, anyway.

She wandered over to the shoe selection—about five tables pushed together and displaying donated and secondhand footwear of various styles and sizes for all ages.

Elevens
, she mused. She wanted elevens, and unfortunately there was nothing available. She found a pair of hiking boots that might fit her man––the reference set her eyes rolling––and plucked them from the table. The last thing she picked up was a large blue-gray parka, which she folded and tucked under her free arm.

With her shopping completed, she wandered over to the checkout table where Heather Scheelock and Mario Howe stood and chatted. Both volunteers were dressed for the season, and Heather, in particular, had a pleasant outdoor glow about her. Haley thought her nice enough but Mario could be a little too nosy at times.

“Hi Haley,” Heather chirped while Mario offered a faint smile. “Did you find anything?”

“Yes, I did,” she answered and pulled the articles of clothing and boots out of the bag. “Here.”

“Getting colder out there,” Heather said as Mario pulled the numbers off the clothing for inventorying.

“It is. It is. Hope the snow stays away this year.”

“You got a friend now?” Mario asked bluntly, looking up from his clipboard and cocking an eyebrow at the clothing she’d collected.

“I do have a guest at the house.”

“You know him?” he asked.

“Ah, he’s a stray,” Haley said. “Followed me home. Someone must have jumped the poor guy and swiped all his clothing. Had his back all cut up and bled all over my coat.”

“Oh dear,” Heather said, but her demeanor had chilled at the mention of a man.

“He’s all right,” Haley said. “He actually saved me last night. Some drunk asshole had me cornered. Who knows what might’ve happened if he hadn’t come along.”

“Oh dear Lord.”

“What’s his name?” Mario asked.

“I don’t know yet.”

“You don’t know but he’s at your house?”

“Poor guy seems to have a case of amnesia.”

Mario exchanged a pensive look with Haley. “You want me to drop by? Maybe bring him back here? Might be safer for you.”

Haley thought about it. “I’m fine. I’ll bring him back here this afternoon anyway. Just have to get him some clothes first.”

“You’re going to bring him around here?” Heather asked.

“Yes. For supper.”

“Good,” Mario said and returned to his clipboard. “We can get a look at him then.”

He wandered off toward a bin of used clothing that had been washed but not processed for the shelter’s regulars, leaving Heather and Haley alone.

“You sure you’re okay?” Heather asked, studying the older lady’s face for signs of duress.

“I’m fine,” Haley assured her with a bright smile. “The guy saved my life, I think. Or at least a beating. A car hit him and drove off. He’s all disoriented. He wouldn’t go to the hospital so I felt I had to do something to repay him. I wouldn’t have done it if I felt threatened. Give me some credit.”

“There wasn’t any head trauma?”

“None that I could tell.”

Heather nodded and smiled at the end. “That the coat with the blood?”

Haley realized it was. She nodded.

“Let’s find you something better. I’ll clean that one up and return it to the rack if that’s okay with you.”

“Oh, yes, certainly. Thank you so much.”

Heather moved around the table and guided Haley by the arm. “You’ll be back for supper later?”

“I will.”

“And you’ll bring him along?”

“I will.”

“You’re a good person, Haley.”

“I know I’m a good person. I
am
a good person.”

“Good. So you know it might be best for him to stay the night here.”

“You have the beds?”

“We have a couple. How are you doing at your place?”

“They’ll be tearing it down in the spring.”

“You should come here, too,” Heather said as she led her to the coat section. “When the snow comes. Don’t be cold, Haley.”

“I have blankets,” she smiled. “But thanks anyway. I’m okay. That old house has been my home for the last few years. I’m attached to it. Be sad once it’s gone.”

Heather reached out and gave the old woman’s shoulder a comforting rub. “You’re a tough customer, you know that? I just don’t know why you’re still over there.”

“You know why,” Haley countered. “I like being on my own. I like the privacy over there.”

“I just think it’s dangerous.”

It was, Haley admitted, but she knew the shelters could be dangerous as well. There’d been instances where unstable individuals had erupted into furies. Violent fits which required the police to intervene. At least at her house, she got to choose who stayed with her.

“Maybe when they finally destroy the house, I’ll sign up for that ‘roommates wanted’ list. See if I can pick up a job somewhere and make another go of it. I think… I think I’m ready.”

“Glad to hear it,” Heather said and gave Haley’s shoulder a squeeze. “And remember, supper’s at five thirty. Chicken soup.”

Haley would be there. Along with her houseguest.

“Now,” Heather inspected the rack of ladies’ coats. “Let’s see, what about this one?”

The ancient Victorian regarded Haley in the overcast afternoon light, like a beaten boxer with a ruined smile, perched on a stool and recognizing an old friend. Paint peels littered the patches of yellow grass. Weathered clapboard that had withstood countless seasons and the storms that came with them hung in tatters, exposing tufts of insulation underneath and the odd bird’s nest. The windows on the ground floor had been smashed, but the blankets held. One room on the second floor, facing away from the street, still had its windows intact, and that was where Haley slept on a pair of stacked mattresses.

An old beast of a house, but it had given her shelter during her dark times. Its days were numbered and it made her sad. She climbed the crumbling stairway to the front door and patted the doorframe’s bare wood. She knocked before entering, just to give him a heads up. The knob was gone––had been missing when she first found the place––so she’d improvised, using a length of frayed rope looped through the resulting hole. She unwound the rope’s end around a four-inch nail driven into the outside frame, fingers brushing the wood as she worked. She entered, closed the door behind and placed a pair of two-by-fours against the door, bracing it from within.

“There,” she said and gathered up her shopping bag. “I’m back.”

She wandered into the damp-smelling living room and there he was, lifting himself from the bare floor where he’d apparently gone to sleep. He studied her as if he’d been napping for years, yawned, and palm-screwed his eyes.

“You slept on the floor?” she asked. “The chair would’ve been more comfortable. There was a mattress upstairs, too, for that matter.”

She caught herself, realizing the only mattress was her own bed, and felt the embarrassment explode into autumn blooms upon her cheeks.

“Well, anyway, I got you some clothes. And some boots. You were lucky.”

The man sat and stared at her, and Haley wondered if he even understood the language.

“Here, then,” she said and unloaded her goods into the easy chair. That got him standing, looking at the clothing with curiosity.

“Take that off and put this on.”

He looked at her with the T-shirt and underwear in his hand.

“I’ll leave it here, okay, and step outside.”

She tossed the clothes onto the chair and retreated to the hall. “Get them on now, okay? You get them on and we’ll head on back to the shelter. Get some hot food in you. I’ve been thinking you should stay there as well. For the night. I mean, thanks for helping me and all, but I don’t feel so comfortable with you in the house. I think it’s best, y’know?”

Silence from the living room.

“You’ll be fine at the shelter. They have showers, and beds if you’re lucky to get one. It can be crowded over there. At the very least they’ll put some blankets on the floor for you. It’s warm, but you’ll have to put up with other people snoring and farting. But it’s warm so that’s nice. How you doing in there?”

No answer.

Haley peeked around the corner and saw the guy, standing like a dog waiting for a command, looking back at her.

“What are you waiting for?”

An expression of keen concentration, but otherwise no response.

“Well, geez, are you okay?” Haley went to him and studied his face. “I mean really okay? Say something, at least.”

But he did not.

“You gotta put these clothes on. And take that off.”

If he understood, he didn’t show it.

“Oh Jesus Christ,” Haley fumed and hitched her hands on her hips. “You can’t go anywhere like that.”

His deep brown eyes showed not a lick of understanding.

“I’m going to help you get dressed, okay? So don’t freak out or anything.”

With that, she opened the plastic containing the underwear and flapped them out before her. The snap of cloth made the man blink and frown.

“Relax. It’s only underwear. Briefs. Drawers. Tighty whiteys.”

Haley held them out and sighed again when he didn’t react.

“You have to put them on yourself, okay? Like this.”

And she squeezed into them herself, feeling like a fool the whole time, but it became clear he didn’t know either the clothing’s purpose or how to put them on.

“Okay,” she said, and pulled the shorts off. She held them out to him. “Now you try.”

To her surprise, he took the briefs, clumsily stepped into them and hauled them over his hips. Haley steadied him at times when he teetered, but in the end, he got them on.

“Excellent. All right, then. Let’s try the rest. Take that off and put this on.”

He made no effort to remove her sweatshirt.

“You aren’t easy, are you?” Haley smiled. To her surprise, he smiled back.

Right before he pissed himself.

“You know there’s something up with him, right?”

Janice sat upon Kirk’s sofa with a cup of coffee. The steam from the black brew blew apart before her face as she talked. The guys who had been out on the morning hunt had crashed at various points around the apartment, and Carma decided to keep Kirk back and save him for the night. Kirk obeyed while she, Morris, and Dyer ventured into Halifax’s urban wilds.

“Yeah,” Kirk said in a low voice, sitting in the easy chair across from her.

“I mean,” Janice continued, “you think about it, he and Ezekiel were the only ones in contact with that thing, right? We don’t know anything about it. All we know is that it’s a monster and on the loose and that shit’s gonna fly come the next full moon. We have no idea if it remembers anything, or if, by some weird chance, it even knows what it is.”

“Good point.”

“If Bailey had his head shot off, who knows what could’ve happened to him, right? Who knows what he’s capable of, and who the fuck knows what he might pass on to
us
.”

That narrowed Kirk’s eyes in thought.

“Yeah, that’s right. What if something happened to Bailey when he got his head blown off? Something more than just having nothing on his shoulders. Maybe… maybe something was released in him and Morris contracted it when he fought it.”

Kirk struggled not to squirm. “Ezekiel still hasn’t healed.”

“Not like Morris. Which makes me wonder if maybe Morris got bit or something. Something that might’ve infected him somehow, but… maybe in a good way? Which is weird but also thought-provoking.”

“A lot of somethings.”

“I know, right?” Janice exclaimed and sipped her coffee. She looked toward the picture window with the curtains opened about a foot and mulled. “A lot of things to consider. Be easier if you’d been in the same fight and gotten fucked up. Then we’d see how fast you’d recover.”

Kirk smiled thinly at that.

“Morris is all right. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think he’s gonna freak out on us or anything, okay? He’s grade-A hardass, but he’s
our
hardass. We’ll figure out what’s going on with him,” Janice said, studying him from underneath a lowered brow. “I know Morris, too. Know his reputation. And for the record, I don’t think a case of rapid healing is a bad thing, I just want to know how and why he can do it. I mean, he was a sack of broken bones and skin when you brought him back, right? Who knows what his insides might’ve looked like. But he’s out there now as if he downed a couple of beers and a handful of painkillers. Like a kid all hopped up on caffeine and sugar. All good to go.”

“All good to go,” Kirk repeated, shifting from one ass cheek to the other.

“It’s just all weird, is all I’m saying. In need of an explanation.”

“I hear you.”

Janice took in another mouthful of coffee and studied Kirk for a few moments. “You know, you’re all right. I can tell.”

“You are, too.”

When he’d first met her, Kirk didn’t think she was anything to look at, but in the shade of the room, after the sense of urgency had abated somewhat, he saw that he was wrong. Janice Glover probably got more than enough attention with her untouched looks. Plain, perhaps, but there was a natural vitality about her that crept up on Kirk, and she was intelligent with a rock star’s edginess. After an hour in her company, Kirk knew Janice didn’t care what others thought of her, and that confidence in itself was as powerful as a magnet.