Contagious (12 page)

A knock at Dew’s door.
He was still shivering as he buttoned up a dry shirt. He should have hopped into the shower to warm up, but there just wasn’t time—too much work to do.
“Who is it?”
“Margaret. I brought your food.”
Dew hadn’t eaten yet. He’d been so pissed he hadn’t really noticed how hungry he was. He stuffed his shirt into his pants, buttoned and zipped, then opened the door.
Margaret stood there in the morning light. She looked good, as always, dark eyes staring back with that combination of kindness and an ever-present haunted look, the result of seeing too many horrors in too short a time. But what
really
made her attractive was the Styrofoam food container she held in her left hand and the steaming Styrofoam cup she held in her right.
“Double cream, double sugar,” she said. “That’s how you like it, right?”
“You’re an angel, lady,” Dew said. He took the container. “You want to come in?”
Margaret nodded and walked into the room. She looked around, eyes lingering on the suitcase placed neatly in the closet, at the shoes lined up next to the suitcase, and the wet shirt, sport coat and pants hanging on the clothes rack, each on its own hanger.
“What happened to you?” she said.
“I took your advice, that’s what happened.” Dew sat down and opened the container. Plastic utensils were in there, rolled up in a paper napkin. He pulled out the fork and shoveled eggs into his mouth.
She sat on the bed next to the nightstand. She looked at Dew’s array of weapons laid out there—the .45, the .38, the Ka-Bar knife, the switchblade, the collapsible baton—then casually scooted farther down the bed, away from them.
“So you were nice to Perry,” she said. “And then what, you went for a swim?”
“He opened the door and doused me,” Dew said as he chewed.
“You’re kidding.”
Dew shook his head. “Ice bucket, I think.”
“Looks like Amos won his twenty bucks back.”
“Those guys bet a lot?”
Margaret nodded. “They’ll bet on anything. That same twenty-dollar bill has traded hands at least a dozen times. Must be some guy bonding strategy.”
“It’s called having fun,” Dew said. “Guys don’t have
bonding strategies
, they just do stuff.”
“Like douse someone with water?”
“That’s not doing stuff,” Dew said. “That’s being a fucking asshole. Pardon my French. His room smelled like a frat house. I think he’s hungover. Bad.”
Dew stabbed the fork until it filled with the last of the eggs. “Kid is a fucking alkie,” he said just before he stuffed the eggs into his mouth.
“He hasn’t had enough time to become an alkie, Dew. It’s only been six weeks since he cut those things out of himself, you know.”
Dew swallowed half the eggs, then picked up a sausage and crammed the whole thing into his mouth.
“Wow, eat much?” Margaret said. “You’d be a classy dinner date.”
“I do sorta
reek
of class,” Dew said as he chewed. “It’s all in the breeding. We ran a full background check on Dawsey, you know. Kid used cash for everything except the bar, but trust me, his credit-card bills showed he spent
plenty
at those bars.”
Margaret rolled her eyes, an expression Dew found simultaneously dismissive and alluring.
“He’s in his
twenties,
for God’s sake,” she said. “Did
you
spend any time in bars when you were in your twenties?”
“Of course not,” Dew said. “I was busy building churches and helping the poor.”
“Oh, now I can see your halo,” Margaret said. “I missed it earlier. Bad lighting in here.”
“Okay, so you’ve got a point. But you know what? Your calm, doctory logic kind of gets on my nerves. Do you always have to be right?”
“
Doctory?
I rather like that word. I don’t
have
to always be right, Dew, that’s just how it works out.”
He took a big drink of coffee. It scalded his mouth a little, but he didn’t care—he felt the heat going into his chest.
“Well, Doc, I’m afraid you’re
not
always right. I tried it your way and got water thrown in my face.”
“So try again.”
“Why the hell should I?”
“You mean besides the fact that we need a live host to figure out what the heck is going on?”
“Yeah,” Dew said. “Besides that.”
“How about having compassion, Dew? How about being understanding? Perry’s been through hell. He lost his best friend.”
“Yeah? So
what
? So did I.”
“And did you beat your best friend to death? Did you nail his hands up with steak knives and write
discipline
on the wall in his blood?”
In his entire life, he’d never been around anyone who made him feel as stupid as Margaret Montoya did. At least not without punching them in the mouth.
Dew grabbed his shoes and started putting them on. “No,” he said. “I didn’t do any of that.”
“Right. So maybe, just
maybe,
Perry is trying to deal with some things that you can’t understand.”
“That shit only floats for so long,” Dew said. “I’m starting to think he’s nothing more than a glorified bully, and the only way to get through to a bully is to give him a whuppin’.”
Margaret smiled. It wasn’t the kind of smile that said,
I bet you’d be a fun roll in the hay,
because Dew knew what those smiles looked like on a woman. At least he
used
to know what those looked like. He didn’t get them anymore. This was another kind of smile, the kind a young woman gives to an old man when the old man says something silly.
“Dew, I know you’re very good at what you do, but just keep some perspective, okay?”
He grabbed his dry coat off the hanger and put it on. “Perspective? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
Margaret shrugged. Her smile grew a little wider, a little more condescending. “Well, look at
you
and . . . look at
him.
You’re not going to beat any sense into him, and shooting him won’t work. You already tried that.”
Dew quickly put the weapons in their various holsters and hiding spots. “Doc, you stick to the sciencey and doctory stuff and leave the rest to me, okay?”
She smiled that smile again, then shrugged. “Whatever you say. So what do we do next?”
“We have to finish up some things here. Then I think we’re heading closer to Chicago.”
So far there was no pattern to the location of the four gates. Chicago seemed as central as the next spot, within quick striking distance of Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana and Ohio.
“How about you make sure the MargoMobile is battened down, Doc,” Dew said. “I want us out of here before the local media stops writing about a white supremacist group getting bombed in Marinesco and decides there might actually be another story afoot.”
He opened the door for her and gestured outside. Margaret walked out, and Dew followed.
DEEEEE-TROIT BASKET-BALLLL!
“Unkie Donny, you sit
here,
” Chelsea said. She patted the center cushion of the couch. It was Daddy’s spot, but Unkie Donny was a guest. She got to sit in Daddy’s lap all the time. She didn’t see Unkie Donny anymore, hardly ever. Not since he moved to Pittsburgh. She didn’t get to see Betty, either. That was worse.
Betty was so pretty. She had pierced ears. Daddy wouldn’t let Chelsea pierce her ears.
Maybe in a few years,
Daddy would say. A year was such a long time. A
few
years? Chelsea couldn’t imagine that a few years would ever come. She’d
never
get her ears pierced,
never
be as pretty as Betty.
Unkie Donny sat down on the middle cushion. “Right here, honey?”
“Yes,” Chelsea said. “Right here. And to sit here you have to pay the toll.”
“The toll? What’s this going to cost me?”
“Smoochies!” Chelsea said.
Unkie Donny lifted her clear up off the ground. “Ready?”
She nodded. They both puckered up and made a
mmmmm
noise as they slowly brought their lips together, then made an exaggerated kissing sound as the
mmmmm
turned into a loud
ahhhh.
Unkie Donnie sat her on the cushion to his left. Chelsea immediately crawled into his lap.
Betty smiled and sat down on the cushion to their right.
“O-M-G, that was so cute I could just keel over,” Betty said. She leaned toward Chelsea. “And where’s
my
smoochies?”
Mmmmm-ahhhh.
Daddy sat on the cushion to the left. He clicked the remote control. The TV changed from a cartoon to show men in white pajamas shooting the basketball.
Chelsea clapped, then leaned back on Unkie Donny’s chest.
He gave her shoulders a little shake. “Honey, do you know what time it is?”
She checked her Mickey Mouse watch. The big hand was on the eleven, the little hand was on the one, so that . . . was . . .
“Not
that
kind of time,” Unkie Donny said. “The
game,
Chelsea. It’s time for . . .”
Chelsea took a deep breath, sat up, then screamed in unison with Unkie Donny, “
Deeeee
-troit basket-ballll!”
She rested against his chest. “Unkie Donny, who is your favorite Piston of all time?”
“Hmmm,” he said. “Well, I’ve been watching them for a lotta years, honey. I’d have to say Bill Laimbeer or Chauncey Billups. Who’s yours?”
“I like Peyton Manning!”
“Wrong sport, baby-girl,” Unkie Donny said.
“Oh,” Chelsea said. “Then I like Chaunney Billups.”
“Chauncey, baby-girl,” Unkie Donny said.
“Chaun-see,”
she said, trying the word on for size. “I was going to name my puppy Fluffy, but now I’ll name him Chauncey. Then you can come and play with Chauncey, Unkie Donny.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Unkie Donny said.
Daddy sighed. “We’re not getting a puppy, Chelsea. Don’t start trying to get other people to campaign for you like you always do.”
“But
Daddy,
I
want
a puppy!”
“Chelsea, we’re not going to talk about this now.”
Chelsea crossed her arms. “You’re not the boss of me.”
Mommy came out of the kitchen so fast that Chelsea flinched. Mommy had her heavy wooden mixing spoon in her hand. The
spanky-spoon
. It was still clumped with mashed potatoes.
“Little lady, if you say that one more time, you’re going to get it.” Mommy shook the spoon as she talked, flinging little bits of mashed potatoes.
“But
Mom
. . .”
“Not another
word,
” Mommy said.
Chelsea pouted and fell back against Unkie Donny’s chest.
Mommy nodded once, blond hair bouncing, then turned and strode back into the kitchen just as fast as she’d come in.
“Chelsea is in a bit of a willful stage,” Daddy said to Unkie Donny. “Usually when she doesn’t get what she wants, she throws a tantrum. Seems she’s on her best behavior because you and Betty are here.”
“Be careful,” Unkie Donny said. “Sometimes they don’t grow out of the tantrum phase.”
Betty smacked Unkie Donny on the shoulder. “Knock it off, geezer.”
Unkie Donny laughed, and Chelsea forgot all about the puppy. She watched the men in the pajamas for a second, then grabbed Betty’s hand. “Who’s
your
favorite player, Betty?”
Betty reached up and stroked her cousin’s hair. “Oh, I don’t know, dolly. I don’t pay that much attention to basketball. If you want to talk about clothes or flowers, I’m your girl.”
The way Betty stroked her hair, it was
so nice.
“I like dandelions,” Chelsea said.
“Oh, those are pretty,” Betty said. “Do you like the yellow kind or the white kind better?”
“I like the white kind,” Chelsea said. “I like the way they float and fly.”
Betty agreed with her. Betty always agreed with her, which was
very
nice. Chelsea had Daddy on her left, Betty on her right, and she was sitting on Unkie Donny’s lap. This was just so
awesome.
She watched the men take off the white pajamas. She thought this was the funniest part of basketball. If she took off her pajamas in front of people, she’d get in trouble. She wanted more ice cream. She’d already had one bar, and that was supposed to be it, but Mommy wasn’t in the room.
“Daddy, can I have an ice cream bar?”
“Don’t you mean
another
ice cream bar, Chelsea? It’s not even noon, and I know for a fact you had one already.”
“Why can’t I have more? I like it.”
“Chelsea!” Mommy shouted from the kitchen. “Do I need to come in there?”
“No,” Chelsea said quickly. “I’ll stop.”
She sighed and fell back against Unkie Donny’s chest again. It just wasn’t
fair.
She watched the men walk onto the court to start the game.
HELP IS ON THE WAY
Forty miles above Chuy Rodriguez’s backyard, the Orbital finished a probability analysis.
The results showed an 86 percent chance of success. Well above the required 75 percent specified in its parameters.
It began to modify the seeds of batch seventeen. It also broadcast a message to the remaining hatchlings, the ones that hadn’t been able to make it to Marinesco or South Bloomingville in time, the ones that were hidden away. It sent the message to the triangles still growing in hosts, from seeds that had blown around for days before making a lucky landing.
The message said,
Stay hidden, stay quiet
.
Help is on the way.
VOICES
Perry Dawsey suddenly sat up in his bed. Steam floated near the ceiling. Every glass surface in the room was beaded with water, even the alarm clock that read 4:17 P.M. He still had a hangover, although it wasn’t as bad. Hunger hit him like a wave. Maybe that breakfast place Dew wanted to eat at was close by.
But it wasn’t the hangover that had woken him. It wasn’t the hunger.
It was the
voices
Not the same voices he usually heard.
Sort
of like that, yet different. It danced away from his ability to define it, like having a word right at the edge of your thoughts and not being able to lock it down.
Something had changed. Something big. But it was also something small. Did that even make sense? No, and yet there it was.
He didn’t understand specific words, didn’t even know if the message contained words at all. More like an urge without emotion. The urge made him want to hide, to be quiet, to stay away from anyone.
Hide . . . and
wait.
Perry stood up. The room was a disaster. Beer-soaked blankets in a little mountain on the floor, beer-soaked clothes next to the bed. Oh, for fuck’s sake—he’d thrown up on his jeans. The place reeked.
He walked to his duffel bag and rummaged through it. Shit, all these clothes were dirty. He’d have to get some of Dew’s people to wash them.