Over Your Dead Body (30 page)

And I had no idea how to find it because everything I’d thought I knew about it was wrong.

Jessica’s death had seemed so different from the others, and I’d been certain that Officer Glassman was lying about the “bigfoot,” and yet here it was. There was no supernatural gas leak, there was an actual monster with actual claws. Glassman’s apparent lie was in fact the only useful testimony we’d gotten the entire time. And now he was dead.

I turned and walked slowly back into the center of town, my mind racing through the facts, trying madly to reorganize them into something I could use. Why had it taken Brooke? Why had it run from me? Did it think she was still Nobody and want to talk? Did it know I was hunting it and want to get away? But why not just kill me? Unless it really couldn’t. That had been our first theory with Jessica and Glassman—that the monster had come for him and killed her as collateral damage when he fought back. Maybe his death two days later was the work of the same monster coming back to finish the job—and maybe that’s why it had used poison, since the physical attack had failed the first time. But who would want to kill Glassman? If the stories about him were true, there might be plenty of people in town who wanted to kill him … but why would a Withered want to kill him? What did it gain? Especially since most of the rumors about him were apparently just rumors. He visited his sister all the time, and no one had ever tried to kill him before. What had changed?

The answer was obvious: Jessica had changed. Six years ago she’d been eight, now she was a pubescent fourteen. And while she wasn’t the only fourteen-year-old in Dillon, she was the only one he’d leered at. The only one he’d confronted directly. The only one with an older sister who swore to kill him.

Brielle had a motive for both attacks and had threatened to carry them out. Was it her? If she’d attacked Glassman and ended up killing her own sister accidentally, it would make her even more likely to come after him a second time, and screw the collateral damage like Glassman’s innocent sister. It made sense. Brielle’s boyfriend, Paul, was the only one of the group who hadn’t been killed, so that strengthened the theory a little more. She’d had an alibi for yesterday’s attack, but if she was a Withered who could change shape and turn invisible, who knew what else she could do? She was my best lead, and I had to follow it.

I was still a few blocks from Mills’s car. A group of people were gathered around it, but at that distance I could barely even count them, let alone see what they were doing. Was he dead? Injured? Had they called an ambulance? I turned sharply to the side, taking another street. This would be easier without him looking over my shoulder. I could do it my way. I stopped the first person I passed on the sidewalk, a middle-aged woman who was clutching her hands to her chest as she walked quickly toward her home, her eyes wide and darting around for danger.

“Excuse me,” I said. I kept my voice calm and nonthreatening. “Do you know where the Butler family lives?” Brielle wouldn’t be there if she was the monster, but her family would, and I had to find out what they knew if I had any chance of killing this Withered.

“They’re 30, um, 32 Willow.”

“Thank you.”

She kept walking, and I hurried on my path. We only had about thirty minutes left before Officer Davis started his lockdown. If I was going to do anything with the information I hoped to collect, I had to work fast. Willow Street was just a few blocks over, on the far side of Main, and I found number 32 just a couple of blocks later. It was a single-story home with a narrow front but stretching back into a long yard. The street was empty, the doors were closed, and the curtains were drawn. No one would see what I was about to do.

I needed to get information fast if I was going to save Brooke’s life. I didn’t have time for finesse or subterfuge or a drawn-out investigation. The monster holding Brooke might kill her at any moment. If the Butler family had any clues that might help me, I was going to get it out of them as quickly and efficiently as I could. It was not going to be pretty.

The cops had taken my knife when they’d taken Brooke to the hospital, so I walked down the road a bit, looking in the windows of trucks. Sure enough, the second one had a gun rack with a pair of hunting rifles.
God bless these rednecks.
I tried the door, but it was locked; I walked around to the passenger side, hoping I wouldn’t have to break a window, and sighed in relief when the handle turned. I unsnapped the straps on the nearest rifle, a long hunting model like the one Derek had held. I pulled a pack of ammo from the glove compartment and loaded it quietly as I walked to the door of the house. I hated guns. They were messy and loud and impersonal. But they were scary as hell.

Ding-dong.

I listened for footsteps and rang again.

Ding-dong.

I heard a voice and hid the rifle just out of view behind the door jamb. A man opened the door partway, stopped after a few short inches by a metal chain.

“What do you want?”

“Hi, sir, my name’s David, and I’m a friend of Brielle’s. Is she home?”

“We’re not interested in visitors right now.”

“I know, sir, and I know Officer Davis told everyone not to let people in their homes, but the lockdown hasn’t started yet and this will only take a minute. I know you’ve gone through a lot lately, and I know it’s hit Brielle really hard, so I brought her a little something to cheer her up. It’ll only take a minute.”

Mr. Butler stared at me moment before speaking. “You’re that new guy just passing through town, right? With the girl?”

“That’s right, sir. I met Brielle at church.”
Thank you, Marci, for insisting we go to church.

“Yeah,” said Butler, “I remember. You had that great dog. Basset hound?”

“That’s right,” I said.

“I love those dogs. And I do remember Brielle saying she liked you. Where’s your girlfriend?”

“She’s with Ingrid.”

“All right then,” he said. “I guess if it’ll only take a minute.” Apparently he thought Brielle was home, which fit with my theory that she could fake her own alibis—an invisible Withered could slip in and out with no problems. Or maybe she really was home, and the Withered that had Brooke was someone else, and I was terrorizing this family for nothing.
No
, I thought,
not for nothing. For information.
He closed the door, and I picked up my rifle, and when he opened it again without the chain I smashed him in the face with the butt of it, breaking his nose and pushing him back inside. He cried out, clutching at his face, and I hit him again, in the knee this time, knocking him to the floor. I closed the door.

“What the—?” He writhed in pain, trying to get up, and I leveled the rifle at his face.

“Quiet.”

He shut up instantly.

“Call your wife,” I said. “Keep your voice as calm and easy as possible or I will shoot you in the face and get her myself. Do you understand me?”

“Are you going to kill us?”

“No,” I said. “But I’m going to bind you, and possibly torture you. No pun intended.”

“Pun? What’s wrong with you?”

I paused, thinking. What was wrong with me? I never acted like this. Or at least I hadn’t since …

 … since I’d been with Brooke. She kept me sane, and she was gone. I’d snapped more quickly and completely than I’d thought possible.

And I’d do a lot more before I was done.

“I promised a friend I’d walk through hell to get her back,” I said. “Don’t make me bring you with me.”

He nodded. I prompted him with the rifle, and he called out in the calmest voice he could muster: “Honey? Can you come into the living room for a minute?”

We waited in silence, and when Mrs. Butler walked into the room she yelped in shock.

“Stay quiet,” I said. “Do exactly what I say or I will kill him. Do you understand me?”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Answer my question or I will demonstrate my seriousness.”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I understand you.”

“Who else is in the house?”

“Just the kids,” she said. “All three—” she broke down, sobbing. “Both of them.”

“Call your son,” I said. “Don’t let him think that anything is wrong.”

She hesitated a moment, then said, “Noah!” Her voice quavered, and I raised the rifle—just a millimeter, to get her attention—and she called out again. “Noah, honey, can you come into the living room?”

This is where it got tricky. If Brielle was home, and if she was a Withered, she could walk in at any moment and kill me. I had a gun, but that was all posturing; I was a horrible shot. Glassman had fought off the demon, but I didn’t have the physical or combat training he did. I had to work quickly and hope I could learn something valuable before the Withered came back.

A short kid, maybe eleven years old, ran into the room, freezing when he saw his bloody father, and me with the rifle. “What?”

“Don’t shout, talk, or do anything stupid,” I said to the boy. “Get down on the floor, face down, and put your hands behind your head. Mrs. Butler, tie him up.”

“Why are you doing this?” asked Mr. Butler.

“Because I need information,” I said, “and I don’t have time to deal with you trying to fight back while I get it. Ma’am, tie him up. Use your husband’s dress shirt—those tear into strips really well.”

“You want me to take my clothes off?” he growled.

I pushed the rifle toward his face, and he stopped talking. “I want you to tie each other up before I just get fed up with how slow you are and shoot you instead.”

“Okay, okay,” said Mrs. Butler, walking quickly toward her husband. “I’ll do it, just don’t shoot anyone.” She pulled off Mr. Butler’s shirt and started tearing it into strips. Noah was crying on the floor.

What was I doing? This isn’t who I am. This isn’t who I wanted to be. I was doing this to help them, to kill a Withered who was murdering this town faster than we could even process the evidence. Derek Stamper wasn’t even in the ground yet, and already the morgue was overflowing. What I was doing was right and good, but … was this really the only way? Was it even the best way? That boy on the floor would remember this for the rest of his life. He’d have counseling and flashbacks and who knew what other trauma symptoms. Childhood victims of violent assault showed a tendency toward violence themselves—not all of them, but enough for me to wonder: was stopping one monster really worth it, if all I did was make another?

It’s not the same
, I told myself.
I can’t think like that.
Giving one kid some bad nightmares and a short temper was nothing compared to the horror that was stalking this town. That was holding my best friend, my only friend, my only hope of ever finding the rest of the Withered and stopping them once and for all. Surely her life, in those terms, was worth at least three others. Surely it was worth far more. Was there an exact number somewhere? How many people would I bind or torture or kill before it became too many, and I had to let Brooke die? I was stymied, as always, by the math of morality. I couldn’t murder my way to peace.

“Done,” she said.

“Now tie up your husband,” I told her. “And make the knots tight. Killing you would break my heart, but it’s not like I’m using it for anything.”

She tied up her husband, binding his ankles, then tying his hands tightly behind his back, before propping him in a corner with their son. I used the last few strips of cloth to tie her hands and ankles as well, and then stepped into the kitchen to look for a knife. They always felt better than guns. There was a knife block on the counter. I pulled out a large, broad-bladed chopping knife and tested the edge. They kept their knives sharp. I took it back into the living room and held it up. “It’s a cleaver,” I said. “You don’t know why that’s funny, but trust me.”

“You said you wanted information,” said the father. “Just ask your questions and leave us alone.”

“Has your daughter been acting strange lately?”

“She’s heartbroken,” said the mother. “All of us are.”

“Does she act guilty at all?”

“Why would she act guilty?” asked the father.

“Yes or no?” I asked.

“No,” said the mother. “Nothing that happened to Jessica, or to that bastard Glassman, was her fault.”

“What about before that?” I asked. Attina hadn’t been born as Brielle—she’d taken her over at some point, killing the real girl and assuming her shape and identity. “Think back months,” I said. “Three, four, maybe as many as seven years. Was there a moment when her behavior changed suddenly?” I thought about Marci and Brooke and the adjustment period each had gone through when Nobody took over their bodies. “Did she go through a few days of complete isolation, cutting herself off from the rest of the world? It would have been followed by markedly different behavior. Has Brielle done anything like that?”

“You mean … puberty?” asked the mother. “I don’t understand what you’re looking for. What are you going to do to my baby?”

“If she’s still your baby,” I said, “nothing at all. Can you think of a sudden shift in her behavior or attitude or even her food preferences, something you can’t attribute to puberty? Like one day she suddenly stopped listening to the same music she used to love, or she changed all her friends at school?”

“Every teen goes through that,” said the father. “I did it, you probably did it as well. I don’t know what you’re getting at, or what you want from our family, but there’s nothing wrong with Brielle. She’s a wonderful person.”

Just like I feared—puberty was so volatile anyway, it was the perfect time to jump in and take over a life. They couldn’t prove that she was or wasn’t a Withered; I needed more information.

“I can see this is getting us nowhere,” I said. “I’m going to gag you now and go take a look at her room. Mrs. Butler will come with me, so you two stay completely still or she will not be coming back. No moving, no talking, no calling for help, no crawling for the door. Do you understand me?”

“Yes,” said the father, and the boy echoed him softly. I ripped strips from a throw pillow and gagged the two males, then sliced away the ties from around the mother’s ankles. The blade carved through the shirt with a smooth, delicious, ripping sound, and I had to hold myself back from cutting anything else.
One, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen—
That only made me think of Brooke, lying unconscious in a bad motel.
Focus!
I backed away, breathing deeply. When I had myself under control again I gestured with the knife for the mother to stand up. “Lead the way and don’t do anything stupid.” She led me through the kitchen and down the hall; I grabbed the rifle as we walked past it.