S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND: Season Two Omnibus (Episodes 9-11) (76 page)

Out on the curb, to be trucked away. Far, far away.

The curb wasn't far enough, but it was good enough for now.

Warily, Ramon watched Lyssa settle into her chair at the kitchen table, her delicate fingers gripping a fresh mug of coffee in her hands as if she expected it to take wing and fly away.

He could see that she was shivering, but he couldn't tell if it was part and parcel of the mania she seemed to be suffering from or the sleeping pills she was going through like candy. He was tempted to ask her if she was giving them to Cassie. He suspected that she was, because it didn't seem natural for the girl to be sleeping so much. But he found that he was actually leery of bringing it up. At least the poor little girl wasn't screaming anymore.

He had arrived home to find them in the downstairs bathroom, Lyssa yelling for Cassie to wash herself, and Cassie shrieking about the water. “What's going on?” he'd cried. “Lyssa, what are you doing to her?”

Lyssa stepped out, her hands and arms red from the scorching hot water. She dragged him up to show him the horror in Cassie's room. He hadn't been prepared for what he found. The moment he saw the carcass on the floor and the stains in the bed, his anger turned to shock, and shock became horror. Lyssa didn't even wait for him to ask what happened. She'd just hissed, “Get rid of it.”

The screaming soon resumed in the bathroom, and from it he'd been able to piece together what had happened. Lyssa seemed to believe that Cassie had dug up the dead rabbit from the garden. But Ramon had his doubts. The act seemed too familiar, too reminiscent of what he'd witnessed at Remy's grave.

I just can't deal with this anymore. I can't.

But where could he run to now? The opportunity with the Ames people was completely lost. The laboratory's reputation irrevocably damaged. No one in their right mind would want to work with them now. It was gone now, all of it.

He'd come to this conclusion while wandering the darkened hallways, only the security lights to light his way. Into the animal test room, immediately gagging at the stink of disease and decay. But, incredibly, he saw that they were all alive, every single one despite what Lyysa had texted. They were all standing at the fronts of their cages, their opalescent eyes fixed upon him, their mouths hanging open. Their faces appeared to be covered in blood or shit. They needed to be cleaned up, fed, watered. They needed to be euthanized.

Can't do this.

He retreated back into the hallway and shut the door.

Sitting in his office for an hour . . . two . . . three, he'd allowed his mind to wander aimlessly until he finally realized what he needed to do. It was the thing he should've done from the very beginning. He needed to refocus his efforts on taking care of Lyssa and Cassie. He got up then and left.

Maybe if he hadn't been in such a hurry to come home, if he'd only spent a few minutes actually thinking it through, he might've burnt the whole complex to the ground.

He gently extracted the cup from Lyssa's hands and set it aside. She hadn't even tasted the coffee.

“I called Ronnie,” he told her. “Left a message for her not to come tomorrow.”

Lyssa looked up at him, her eyes glassy. “Ronnie? Oh, I forgot about her. I hope she doesn't believe what they're saying about us.”

“She didn't pick up.” Ramon sighed and his whole body seemed to deflate. “I don't blame her for not taking the call. We—”

“We should leave,” Lyssa said. “The island, I mean. We should pack the car and take Cassie and go. Just . . . go.”

Ramon raised his hands in frustration. “Where?”

“I don't know! Stay in a hotel somewhere. Somewhere away from these towers.”

“Are you getting on that again? There's nothing wrong with—”

“I don't care!”

He sighed. “Fine. Okay. We'll get packed up and leave.”

Something flickered in her face. He wasn't sure if it was relief or surprise. Maybe it was suspicion. He didn't want to leave, of course. To do so would be to admit defeat. It would be an irrevocable acknowledgement that he had failed.

Neither of them moved.

He thought when he agreed to go that she'd jump right up and start packing, ordering him to do the same. He almost wished she would so that he wouldn't have to take charge. He was so tired of taking charge.

“Did you take care of the dead rabbits?”

He stared at her, frowning.

“In the lab. There were six dead. Maybe more now. I texted you last night after you left.” She reached up and rubbed the sore spot where she'd hit the back of her head and winced. “And the others. Are any still alive? Did you feed them?”

He opened his mouth. But all he could manage to make was a strangled sound.

She nodded and sighed. “It doesn't matter anymore.”

“The roadblocks are gone,” he offered. He glanced at the clock on the wall. “Although the highway's bound to be packed with cars by now. Weekend traffic. News seems to be back to normal. Not a word about the outbreak. Now that they've ruined our lives.”

She shook her head. “What about the reporters?”

“Out front?” He shrugged. “Mostly gone, too. Short attention spans. They've already moved onto the next thing.”

“Which is?”

“Who knows? As long as it's not us.”

Lyssa stood up then. “I'll go pack some bags.”

He watched her go without speaking.

Maybe this is rock bottom
, he thought.

If it was, then maybe Lyssa could finally start crawling her way out of Remy's grave.

He got up and started to pack.

* * *

They left, but Cassie brought them back. They got as far as the end of the block before she forced them to turn around.

After he had loaded up the trunk with their bags, Ramon carried her down from her bed upstairs and placed her into the back seat of the car where Lyssa was already waiting. Cassie felt so light in his arms, like she might suddenly just float away. Her skin was blotchy, pale white and pink from last night's scrubbing. Her eyes were sunken from so much crying. In her slumber, she seemed frail. Her breathing was so shallow that he feared even the slightest disturbance would somehow make it stop.

He wanted to yell at Lyssa, even planned to say something to her again about giving Cassie sleeping pills, but as he was settling the girl onto the seat, her eyes fluttered open and focused on him with such intensity that he doubted she was sedated after all.

“Where are we going, Daddy?”

“We have to leave, honey.”

The slack in her face drained away. She struggled to sit up, but Ramon pushed her back down and told her to lie still.

“Just for a couple days,” he told her. “Another camping trip.”

He slammed the door shut and slipped into his own seat and started the engine.

“No!” Cassie cried, struggling against her seatbelt. “No no
NO!
We can't leave!”

“Cassie, hush!”

She grabbed the back of his seat and started thrashing.

“Stop it!”

The garage door was rolling open, illuminating them with afternoon sunlight. Ramon impatiently nudged the car forward, as if the act of driving might be all that was needed to quiet her.

“We can't leave Ben Nicholas!” she screeched.

Ramon glanced over at Lyssa, who was pinching the bridge of her nose.
Do something
, he wanted to shout.
Help me out here
. But it was clear she would be of no assistance.

“Noooooo!” Cassie yelled, her voice an eardrum-piercing yowl in the closed space. “I want Ben Nicholas!”

“Ben Nicholas is dead!” Lyssa screamed back, her hands exploding from her face and impacting the dashboard with such force that the glove compartment popped open. “He's fucking dead! So shut the fu—”

“
Lyssa!
” Ramon roared. “That's enough!”

“It's not real,” Cassie whimpered. She collapsed onto her seat. “He's not real yet.”

She's withdrawing
, Ramon thought, panicking.
Oh God, what's happening? They're falling away from me again.

“We need Remmmmy,” Cassie wailed.

Lyssa's head spun so quickly her cheek hit the headrest. “What did you say?”

“We can't leave Ben Nicholas, Mama. Please.”

Cassie grabbed the back of the seat again and started to shake it.

“Stop it!” Ramon snapped. He turned off their driveway and headed for the highway. “I said stop it now!”

But she wasn't listening. “No, no, no! It's not time!” She started to scream again. “It's too soon! He's not ready!”

Lyssa threw her hand back to grab Cassie, but she was cowering in the opposite corner, beyond her reach. “Stop it, Cassie!”

But as Ramon pulled up to the stop sign at the next corner, Cassie flung herself from the car and began to run away, back in the direction they had come. Her bare feet slapped the hot sidewalk and echoed against the silent houses.

“Cassie! Cassie, come back here!” He turned to Lyssa. “Jesus Christ. Don't just sit there! Go after her, damn it!”

* * *

They didn't find her until several hours had passed and twilight was beginning to silver the sky. It was Lyssa who came upon Cassie, hands filthy with mud and her knees grass-stained. Lyssa was almost beside herself, frantic, hyperventilating. When she found the girl at the gravesite, all she could do was hold her, and together they cried over the torn fingernails and skin, at the blood seeping into the new mound of dirt. Clutching each other, they leaned against the cold granite. The sun began to set. Shadows crept over the cemetery.

“Not ready,” Cassie kept moaning. “Not ready.”

“Okay, honey,” Lyssa said, trying to console her. “Someday you will be. We won't leave. Not yet. Not today.”

 

They woke Monday to the sound of the trash trucks outside their window, and it was something so normal, so irrefutably routine that Lyssa couldn't help but lie there and listen to it.

Privately, she wanted to believe that it had all been a bad dream, that maybe when she rose and went downstairs, that after she cooked breakfast, Cassie would pad in on her soft feet, her hair in tangles and the rabbit drooping in her arms like he always did, and all would be well. Ben Nicholas's back feet would sway and Lyssa or Remy would tell her not to carry him like that. And Cassie would plop him down onto the linoleum floor, and Ben Nicholas would hop lackadaisically about, his nose poking into every crevice and corner. Then, as if some random neuron in its tiny brain had fired and triggered a memory of some urgent appointment, he'd pop up and spin, then suddenly tear off into another room.

Lyssa felt the tension leave her face as the image passed before her like a movie, and she almost laughed out loud. The feeling — not quite happiness, though certainly not its opposite — began to bubble up inside of her as she lay there, her heart expanding.

But then the smile soured as she heard the garbage truck do its mechanical ingestion, and the nightmare of the past few days slipped back into her thoughts. She remembered the rabbit's death, its brutal murder and burial and exhumation. She wished that version of reality could've remained buried in the quiet crannies of her unconscious mind.

The rabbit was in the trash bin out front.

She rose, careful not to look at the figure occupying the other half of her bed, lest she make eye contact and be forced to address the terrible things that she'd had to do. She donned her thin robe and stepped out into the hallway and quietly made her way to the window overlooking the street.

The trash truck finally arrived in front of their house. She watched as it lifted the gray bin into the air over the cab and tilted it over, emptying its contents into the receptacle behind. There was a flash of white, too quick to tell if it was a bolt of the rabbit's fur or the plastic trash bag she assumed Ramon would have put it in. She felt the tightness in her chest beginning to loosen.

“Well, that's that,” she muttered.

Now Ramon was up. She could hear him moving about in the bedroom, opening drawers, the closet door, closing them. The soft shush of his footsteps on the carpet. By the time he came to her side, standing close but not touching her, bins all up and down this side of the street stood or lay haphazardly at the curb like drunken soldiers.

He exhaled between pursed lips. “Everything seems so normal, doesn't it? Like it's just another normal day.”

She wanted it to be so. But his words seemed only to drive home the horrid truth of their situation. Nothing was normal. It was all an illusion. All she'd have to do was look into his eyes to strip away the fantasy.

She didn't move, didn't turn away from the scene. Not even when she heard him leave. She felt the air beside her expand, filling the space he'd just occupied.

“You know, Lyss,” he said, loudly. He was back in the bedroom. Or maybe the master bathroom. Maybe he was shaving. “I'm glad we didn't leave yesterday. This gives us another chance to fix things.”

Lyssa grunted.

“Cassie was right. How could we think about leaving now?”

She heard the front door open as he went out to collect the trash bin. She waited for him to appear on the lawn beneath her, counting the heartbeats, expecting him to appear . . . .

Any second now . . . .

Where the hell is he?

And then he was there, and she realized he'd stopped to collect the mail from Saturday, which they'd forgotten all about. He was sorting through it as he walked across the lawn, his slippered feet leaving a darker trail in the silvery dew on the grass. She watched him reach down and lift the bin up from where it had tumbled against the curb. She watched him roll it up the driveway, disappearing around the side of the garage.

A moment later she heard his yell. “Son of a bitch! God damn it! Lyssa!
LYSSA!
”