Consumption (22 page)

They huddled in Bunny's basement, the safest place they could think of. With the addition of Star and Javier, their group numbered eight. It was dark down there, and Pill wouldn't let them turn on any lights. Instead, he held a flashlight over the pages of the book in his lap. Around him, the group sat in silence.

He began to read, the flashlight in his hand making a circle on the words upon the page and then bouncing back from them to light his face. He looked like a ghost already, Riley thought. If this was their only hope for salvation, they were in a world of hurt.

But despite his appearance, the old man's voice came out loud and strong, and the group around him remained silent, bowing their heads to listen. As the screams outside grew louder, closer, Pill raised his voice to match and then overpower them.

“ ‘I'm writing this to tell you about the Feeders. But I don't want to start there. I want to start somewhere nice. Before that happened. I want to start with Jimmy…. ' ”

It wasn't until Pill came to the end of his wife's journal that Riley really started listening. He didn't give a shit about the girl's sad story or the boy she'd loved. But after Pill read through all that bullshit, he'd gotten to the only part that really mattered. He'd read off a checklist that Jessi had provided of ways to spot a Feeder. Immediately, Riley snapped to attention, beginning to run through the list in his mind, committing it to memory.

First, Jessi wrote that a person had to consume the flesh of somebody already infected, but that didn't help him much. Anybody could eat something one of the fuckers had hidden a hair in, or a fingernail, or even spit in. What else? She'd also said that the creatures would be both marked in some unusual manner and bleed black when you cut them. The bleeding didn't help, but the mark might. Finally, the journal suggested that the Feeders were scared of dogs. That dogs were pure of spirit or some shit like that. He didn't know and didn't really care what the reasoning was behind any of it, but at least it was information he could use. Riley wasn't going to take any chances. He would, just as Jessi Verrity had suggested, kill each and every one of them.

So who in the room fit? Who might be a Feeder, might be a danger to Izzy?

“Are they like zombies, then, or some shit?” asked Javier, as Pill shut the journal. Javier had his own flashlight on now, but it was pointed out toward the group, leaving him in shadows.

“Not that I know anything about zombies, son, but no. I would say not. Zombies can't think, isn't that how it is?”

“Yes.”

“Feeders can. They can do anything humans can. They
are
humans. They just don't got a soul.”

Riley didn't waste any time not believing what Pill had to say. It wasn't his way. He needed to trust his gut. He'd learned that the hard way on the job, and he meant to make use of the lesson to save himself and his daughter.

A marking. Who had a marking? Who was afraid of dogs, or had been acting strangely?

Izzy squirmed on his lap, her tiny thumb in her mouth. She was asleep.

“We've got to get help!” Aunt Bunny stood up from where she'd been seated on the couch and primly smoothed her dress. Same old Bunny, worried about how she looked even in a crisis…He stopped.

No, in fact it was
not
the same old Bunny. She'd always been neat—tidy, even—but she'd still never looked very good. She just hadn't had the sense of style, the panache to pull it off. But now…He watched her as she smoothed down her hair and noticed the bright red lipstick she was wearing. His aunt had never worn lipstick. Not as long as he'd known her, she hadn't.

“Look, I know you said communication is down,” said Bunny—she spoke with authority, her voice betraying no emotion
whatsoever—“but
that doesn't mean there aren't other ways to get help.”

“You don't understand,” said Erma. “If what Pill says is true, and I think it is—” Erma stopped and turned around and met Riley's eyes. “Do you think it's true? Do the rest of you?”

“It'd be fucking hard not to,” said Javier. He sat with his back against the wall and the girl, Star, crouched beside him. She watched him like he was the only person in the room.

“I agree with the boy,” said Bunny, turning toward him and trying to catch his eye. Javier ignored her.

“I believe it's true,” said John, “but I don't understand why we can't call for help. There's got to be
some
way. Pill, I know your CB is too far away, but there must be another one in town.”

“Even if we reached someone, they wouldn't believe us,” said Erma. “Am I right, Pill?”

The old man nodded. “Not a chance.”

“Then we'll make something up!” said John. “Tell them there's a gunman, or…a tornado, for God's sake. A terrorist. Christ, who cares? We just need to get someone here!”

“I agree,” said Bunny. “That makes perfect sense.”

Where, Riley wondered, was his uncle?

“We can't do that!” said Erma. “Aren't you listening? Just imagine they did come. Imagine Billings, or the FBI, sent people in here. Imagine, even, that they got here before we're dead, which I think is pretty fucking unlikely—what would happen?”

“They'd be eaten,” Star said. She leaned against Javier in the shadows and spoke with her eyes closed.

“Worse,” said Pill. “They'd be forced to eat.”

“Those people, the law officers or whoever, have guns!” said John. “They can die, can't they, the Feeders?”

“They can die all right,” said Pill. “But if they were allowed to infect even one person, one single person from the outside, then imagine what would happen.”

“Who's to say they haven't already?” said John.

Riley could see that John's resolve was weakening. A coward, that man. Not him, though. He was going to do whatever it took.

“There's no one to say,” said Pill. “We can only pray. Hope it's like before when they try to turn the entire town first and then move on.”

“Who's to say there isn't someone in here who's one of them?” asked Riley.

“Patrick!” said Bunny. “How can you even suggest that?”

“Where's Uncle Bob, Aunt Bunny?”

“Excuse me?”

“I said, where's Uncle Bob?”

“He…He's not here, Patrick. Why are you asking me that?”

On the opposite side of the room from his aunt, Riley saw Erma and John's dog, crouched beside Pill and seemingly asleep. Riley whistled, and the dog's head sprung up.

“What are you doing?” Bunny asked. Her face wrinkled in dismay. “Patrick, stop that!”

Riley whistled again, and the dog came toward him, lunging past Bunny as it did so. The woman pulled into herself and gave a short burst of a scream. The dog stopped, confused, and then turned tail, heading back to its masters. Riley could feel the tension in the room building, the faces around the circle tightening. Gently, he deposited his sleeping daughter onto the floor beside him and stood, walking across the room to Bunny.

“Riley,” Erma said, looking at him with the beginnings of understanding in her eyes. “Riley, no. Don't.” She started toward him, but John came up behind her. He wrapped his arms tightly around his wife, keeping her from moving.

Well, maybe he wasn't as stupid as he looked.

“You think she's one of them?” Javier asked, keeping his voice low. It didn't matter, though. In this small of a room, sound carried, and Riley heard his aunt gasp.

“Patrick, no!” she screamed. “How can you even think that?”

“I don't know,” Riley said, turning to Javier, not bothering to keep his voice down any longer. “Maybe so, maybe not. But I think we should check. Use the information from Pill's old lady's story. See if Aunt Bunny has a mark, that sort of thing.”

Javier nodded. “I'll hold her,” he said. He stepped ahead of Riley and grabbed Bunny. The old woman sank against him, as if at his touch all the strength had been sucked out of her. Javier patted her up and down, first the back and then the front.

“This is ridiculous!” Erma called, pushing against her husband. “Riley! Stop it!”

In the corner, Pill sat with the flashlight on his lap, watching.

“I don't feel anything,” Javier said, finishing patting up the front of the woman.

“Lift her shirt,” Riley commanded, swinging his flashlight on the pair.

Javier did as he was commanded, and Riley felt a pang of guilt as he saw the terror in his aunt's eyes. She flinched as the flashlight hit them and Riley lowered it some.

“Riley,” she looked at him, not yelling. “Please stop. I know what you think, but—”

“There!” Javier pointed at Bunny's exposed belly with his own flashlight. A giant red rash ran from Bunny's belly button down to where the edge of her panty hose peeked above her skirt.

“It's not what you think,” Bunny whispered again.

His poor aunt. Riley pulled the gun from out of his sock and raised it. He'd always loved her, almost like a mother he'd loved her. Behind him, he felt Izzy's presence. She'd fallen asleep curled beside him during the story, but she'd been so close to the woman. So close. Anything could have happened. He couldn't take that chance again.

“Shoot her,” Javier said, pinning the woman's arms behind her back. “Shoot the fucking bitch!”

“Shoot her.” Star's whisper came from the corner.

“Riley, no!” Erma yelled, struggling against her husband's hold. Across the room, Pill, too, was standing, the book forgotten as it fell from his lap. Maxie began to bark, her ears pinned back to her head as she ran in circles. Finally, Erma broke free, coming toward them.

Too late, though. He'd do what it took. Whatever it took to keep his daughter safe. There were only two bullets left in his gun. Riley planned on only having to use one.

If he could have known Bunny's thoughts right then he would have heard the whir of her confusion, known the fear and pleasure and the hate as the boy whom she'd wanted and watched for such a long time finally touched her, touched
her
and let his sweet hands trail over her old skin, skin that she'd worked so hard to keep free from redness where it would show by keeping it away from that stupid dog, the skin on her stomach one that she had never thought would be exposed this early, this openly to the boy she'd craved and now, here, her follies were revealed her stupid thought of baring herself of the sad gray hairs below her waistband, and now he could see it, see it all, see her for the dumb old woman she really was, and him so bright and so beautiful, and the heat from his hands was just as she'd expected only full of hate and not that other thing, that unnamable heat that burns out in passion, and she could not stand it, could not stand it, and his eyes were so full of disgust…

But Riley knew none of this.

And so he steadied the gun and squeezed, forcing the trigger to release its deadly accurate bullet. As he did so, Riley caught the face of his daughter from the corner of his eye, lit by the candle. She was no longer asleep. She was watching him. And she was smiling.

Bunny's head exploded.

Kill the bitch.

Kill her.

His own words, playing over and over, drumming against his skull. His words. His death sentence for the old woman.

Kill the bitch.

Beside Javier, the girl stroked his hand, like she was trying to erase something, over and over, the same slow motion.

Kill the bitch.

He couldn't take back what he'd done, what he'd said. But he could keep her safe, maybe. This stranger with the brown eyes that looked so familiar he almost thought he knew them.

Kill the bitch.

The words came again, and just as quickly Star wiped them away with the stroke of her hand.

“You did what you had to do. You know that,” she said.

“That lady's fucking crazy, huh?” Javier said, jerking a thumb back at the corner where John was bent over his wife, who had apparently decided to check out of this world.

“Yeah,” said Star. “She is.”

“You think that old man's crazy too?” Javier asked

“Not any crazier than the rest of us.”

Javier laughed. “You got that right,
mija
.” He grew silent, and Star closed her eyes. He felt the warmth of her skin under his hand.

“You know,” Javier said, speaking softly, although everyone else was occupied in their own pursuits, Pill and Riley pulling a blanket from the back of the sofa, covering Bunny's body, Erma and John doing their death dance for sanity in the corner. The little girl sat nearby, only feet from her great-aunt Bunny's body. She watched the goings-on without any sign of fear, her thumb tucked neatly into her mouth. “You remind me of somebody.”

“I'm glad,” said Star.

“Me too,” said Javier, and he pulled Star in fully against him, letting her rest under his arm.

It was the first time she'd been touched in kindness in weeks. Star knew it wasn't healthy, what she was feeling for him. Not now, of all times. But there it was, just the same. She felt a connection with him, a desperate connection that was the only thing keeping her in this world instead of crawling into a corner and giving up like that woman, Erma, had done. Javier was so
alive
and so angry at the same time, it was an unworkable combination, even if he couldn't see that. He'd get himself killed if he didn't have someone to watch out for him. He
needed
her. It had been a long time since that had been true of anyone.

In a corner of the room to her left the three men came together in a huddle. Heads lowered, John, Riley, and Pill whispered fervently, and Star could just make out the fact that they were talking about Erma. Probably what to do about her.

Star let herself sink back into Javier, ignoring the others.

She wanted to enjoy this.

Because it couldn't last. Soon, one or both of them would be dead.

Erma could hear the commotion outside of her, hear the plan to blow up the factory, could hear John calling her name. She could hear it all, but she couldn't bring herself out of the bubble she'd built, the cocoon of silence in which she'd wrapped herself. Too much. The voices swirled around her like unwelcome flies, John's mixed in with the others.

Oh my God. You fucking shot her. You shot her, man!

It's time to go. The factory. It's where they have to be. Together.

We can't! It's suicide.

We…

A cold nose touched her hand, and for an instant she came back to herself. Maxie stood beside her, shoving her face against Erma's hand.

“See,” said John. “Maxie's worried about you, too, baby. Come back to us. It'll be okay,” he whispered. “I promise we'll be okay.”

Erma heard Riley's voice from across the room. It sounded shaky but loud, as if trying to cover his nerves. “It was for the best. We can't know. You heard the man's story. She could have still been infected and just not turned all the way. You saw the signs.”

“Sure, man.” Javier, the boy's voice. “It doesn't matter,
hombre
. We did her a favor either way. We'll all be dead soon enough.”

“Pill's right,” Erma heard Star say. “It has to be the factory, it's—”

“Where they keep the wafers, of course!” Javier interrupted. “That's what you said, isn't it, Star? They changed when they ate the communion wafers?”

“Dear God,” said Pill. “They mean to send them out into the world. The wafers, the sugar, and all of it contaminated. If even one batch of it gets out—”

“But it means they'll want to protect it. It means we can drive them there if…”

The voices went on, the arguments, the plan forming, and all of it with Bunny's body dead on the floor. How could they? She felt a small hand on her leg, and then the voice of the little girl beside her.

“Bunny go boom!” Izzy squealed. “Boom. Boom!”

Erma shut her eyes more tightly. How could they do it, she wondered again. But she knew, didn't she? They could because no matter what she'd told herself all these years, humanity was awful. Was evil. Thank God she'd lost the baby. It could only ever have been another monster.

Erma
. This voice was different than the storm of sounds around her. She tried to shut her mind against it, but it came again.

Erma
.
Stop it. Stop it and be sensible, girl.
It was her mother's voice. Firm. Reasonable. And full of love.

But only because she had to be, Erma thought. Her mother had raised her only because she had to. If she had known beforehand that she was pregnant, known about her options back then, she would have killed Erma just like she killed her other baby. But she hadn't. Had been too young to reason it out, and so she'd had to take the responsibility of raising Erma out of a sense of duty. Erma hadn't understood that then, but she did now. It didn't make her mother a good person. Love had nothing to do with it.

Now, stop that, girl! Stop that right now. Are you saying that I didn't love you? That your father didn't love you? We had our problems, sure, but we loved you.

Just a sense of duty, Erma thought. A sense of duty left over from the time when survival as humans depended on looking out for one another. They were all just stupid, ugly organisms trying to survive.

Is that right, girl? Meant nothing at all those Sundays you and me sat up till nigh one in the morning eating ice cream and playing gin rummy? Those afternoons your daddy took you out to your grandparents' to help birth those lambs at the crack of dawn just so as you could give them their first bottle? Nothing?

Nothing.

Erma stubbornly and completely pushed the voice away and let John shake her, tuning his voice out, too.

And now John was holding her, just as she'd wanted him to on that morning so long ago.

But it was too late now. Everything was ruined. Look at them, like a pack of dogs. With the merest scent of blood in the air, they'd attacked without provocation, attacked without investigation or calm reasoning. Attacked on pure instinct, just like Feeders. They'd killed an innocent woman.

Erma felt the slight pressure of the little girl's hand on her leg again, and this time she opened her eyes. Izzy stood with her thumb in her mouth, watching them. Erma looked away from the child to where the mess that had been the woman's blood had been and remembered the story that Pill had just read to them from his dead wife's journal. Their blood will be black. Not that it will do you any good to know this.

She'd been right. It did her no good at all to know this and to see the blood from Bunny's neck seeping into her fastidiously clean carpet a bright and scarlet red.

Izzy gave Erma a small smile around her thumb and then pulled it out just long enough to speak. Erma tried to smile back but couldn't.

“Bunny go boom!” Izzy squealed. “Boom. Boom!”

“Izzy, no,” Erma said. She grabbed at the little girl's hands and pulled them down. “Shh. Don't say those things. It'll be okay, sweetheart.”

Izzy pulled away from Erma and Erma did not try to pull her back. Izzy raised her arms again and Erma watched in horror as the little girl made exploding gestures with her hands. “Pow! Boom!”

Erma, without realizing she was going to do so before she did it, felt her hand snake out and she slapped the little girl across the face.

“Erma!” John said, “stop it!” He grabbed her wrist, which she realized she'd raised, along with her arm, in order to slap the toddler again.

Erma closed her eyes. Black it out. She had to black it out. Just stop thinking. Everything she'd believed in, every hope in humanity that she'd clung to despite everything she'd seen, was gone. Dead. Buried. Seeping into the ground with Bunny's blood. Finally, and fully, Erma could see herself for what she really was.

Good, Erma thought, squeezing her eyes more tightly shut. Good. They were all her father's children after all. Each and every one of them with that seed of evil buried beneath their skin, and if there was a demon who wanted to feed on that, then let him.

“Erma!” John shook her again. “Honey, we've got to go. Please! Wake up! Wake up!”

She couldn't hear anything. Nothing at all.

Except…

The voice of her mother would not stop talking. Erma fought against it, tried to shake it away, but just as she'd been when she was alive, her mother was stubborn.

I'm talking to you, Erma.

No. I won't listen. Can't listen. Everything is black. So black.

Oh, you'll listen, young lady. You'll listen and listen good. All those times you wanted to go out to the barn to feed those baby sheep your dad made your grandpa get long after he retired just so that you could know something of farm life? You saying you don't remember that?

Go away, Erma told the voice. Just go away.

And oh, how you begged and begged him not to sell those babies because you were so in love with them…

Oh, God, the sheep. Erma remembered them now, their soft, sweet wool, how her father, her own father, despite all the terrible things he did and had done, would wake her to visit them, would carefully place them in her arms…

And your dad would sit out there with you in the barn for hours talking to—

No! It was too much to remember!

—you about them, helping you—

No!

Yes!

Stop talking at me!
Easier to make everything black. Ugly.

The voice went on.

—to nurse those babies with that bottle you got up after the mama fell sick…

How could Erma ever have forgotten this?

Oh, how you loved them. Loved them, loved them…

She'd loved them.

Of course she did. She had loved her parents. Both of them, even her father, no matter his shortcomings. And she loved her husband, loved what they had created and lost between them. All of a sudden, she could feel John again, his weight pressing against her back.

And she allowed herself, her true self, the self that was Erma, to press back. The self that she'd begun to suspect was maybe just a front, just a pitch she used to sell the beat-up women and kids she worked with on the possibility of hope. But no. It was her. This, now, was her. She believed all those things she'd told them. She had to. And now she needed to tell them to herself.

Yes, there was dark in this world, a great lot of it, in each of us, probably, enough to make us kill one another without ever knowing if it was the right thing to do, but doing it not always with hate, doing it sometimes, every great once in a while, with love. Because of love. Because you wanted so much to protect somebody or something. Because you loved them. And yes, the killing was a darkness, a sin, but it was the coming together, the idea that you could save someone that mattered. The fact that anyone ever wanted to save someone else.

Like those lambs. She'd wanted to save the babies so much even after the mother died, and her dad had helped her not because he loved the lambs, but because he loved her, Erma…
For hours, you two
, her mother's voice said,
you'd mind those babies for hours
.

The room in front of Erma began to clear. Her mind stopped spinning and the cottony fog she'd wrapped herself in lifted.

Baby.

Mind the baby.

Erma looked at the little girl sitting splay-legged in front of her. She had her thumb in her mouth, and she was watching Erma warily. She was a cute little girl. Erma wondered, for the first time, if her own child would have been attractive.

The red mess of blood in the toilet flashed before her.

Mind the baby. Mind the babies, Erma.

Yes, she'd have to take care of this little girl now, watch her for the others. She wouldn't let this one die.

Mind the baby, Erma. MIND HER.

A command now, from her mother. No gentle reprimand, this. Erma looked harder at the girl. Izzy was her name, she remembered now. Erma reached a hand out to her, and the little girl reached her own hand out in a mimicking gesture.

“Hey,” Erma cooed. “Hey, it's all right.”

“Erma?” John spoke above her, but Erma ignored him. She stretched her hand forward and then stopped. The girl wore no socks or shoes, and Erma stared at her left sole.

On the bottom of her foot was a raspberry-colored birthmark in an indistinct, ugly shape.

Izzy smiled at her.

“Erma?” She thought it was John at first, but then understood it was Riley, back from upstairs. He bent down to kneel beside his daughter. “You doing any better?” he asked Erma.

“I think she's doing a little better, thanks,” said John, answering for her.

“She's had a shock,” said Riley.

“We all have.”

“Doesn't sound like it's gonna get any better, does it?”

“Nope.”

Erma watched as Izzy pushed herself to a standing position, wobbling on her chubby legs and hiding her mark against the carpet's fuzz.

“The baby.” Erma pointed.

“Who, Izzy?” Riley asked. “You want to hold Izzy?” He scooped the girl up and brought her toward Erma.

Erma tried to shake her head no, but it felt attached by immovable weighted hinges. She could not move it.

“Here,” Riley said, pushing Izzy toward her. “You take her. Izzy, go be nice to Erma here. She wants to say hello.”

In response, Izzy bounced in her father's arms and stuck her hands out to Erma. “Hi!” she squealed. “Hi! Hi!”

Erma tried to back away, but John was holding her there. “No,” she managed. “I don't want her.” She turned into John and lifted her face toward him. “She's marked,” she whispered.

“Hold on a second,” John said, putting his hand out to stop Riley from bringing his daughter any closer. “I don't think she's feeling up to it yet.”

Erma felt Maxie's nose on her hand again and she looked down, grateful to have her companion beside her. But looking at her more closely, she saw that the dog was shivering.

“John. Something's wrong with Maxie.”

Riley took a step forward. “I'm good with dogs. Let me see—”

Izzy screamed. “No! Back, Daddy. Bad dog! He bites.”

Startled, Riley pulled away. “Shh. It's okay, baby. I'm sorry. You don't have to be afraid.”

Erma pushed John's hands off of her and took a tentative step toward the cop. “Riley. I want you to listen to me.”

“Sure, Erma. Just a second. Let me get Izzy calmed down here.”

“Put her down, Riley. Right now, just put Izzy down.”

“What is your problem?” Riley asked. He turned to John. “Your wife's crazy. You know that?”

“Erma.” John tugged at her sleeve. “Are you sure?”

She nodded. Only once, but it was all John needed. He ran toward Riley, charging him. Erma never knew what he'd planned to do with the little girl because in that second, seeing John charging, the toddler turned into her father and bit Riley's neck. With one bite, she severed his windpipe.