S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND: Season Two Omnibus (Episodes 9-11) (77 page)

He appeared around the side of the house again and looked up at the window, as if he expected her to still be there. He gestured angrily at her to come down. Then he spun around and went back to the side of the house.

She found him bent over what appeared to be a mound of dirt by their back gate. When he saw her, he reached over and pulled on it, peeling it off the ground. Lyssa gasped.

“Didn't you say Sam's been setting out poison?” There was a fire in his eyes. He was furious. “Well, didn't you?”

“Yes, but—”

Ramon brushed past her, knocking her shoulder. “Son of a bitch!”

“No! Wait.” And she was surprised when he actually did stop. “What are you going to do?”

He whirled around. “I'm going to teach that asshole a lesson!” He held up the carcass. “This is intentional! It was rats yesterday and I didn't say anything. Now it's raccoons. I think this qualifies as escalation.”

It took her a moment to register what he'd said. “What do you mean rats? When?”

“When we were looking for Cassie. They were all over the back yard, like they'd been flung there by that—” He passed her again and fumbled with the gate latch with his free hand, swearing under his breath until he finally managed to kick it open. “Jesus fucking Christ, Lyssa. Look!”

She could see another of the small bodies just inside the yard.

“The man is sick!” Ramon sputtered and made an obscene gesture toward the neighbor's house.

“You can't be sure it's him, Rame, not after everything that's happened. The epidemic. Or maybe it's probably someone protesting.”

“Yeah, well, there's one way to find out. I'm going over there.”

“Rame! Don't take that.”

But he ignored her. She watched as he marched past the end of the fence and into Mister Locke's front yard. By the time she caught up with him, he was pounding on the front door and yelling, “Samuel Locke! Get your ass out here!”

“Ramon!” Lyssa hissed, and tried to pull him away.

“No! We need to get this out in the open. What he did— No, what he's doing now is bullshit.”

“Please, don't swear. You—”

The front door opened, revealing the tall, thin man. The lower half of his face was covered in a dark shadow of beard and his hair was in disarray. He wore short pants, and his chest was bare. It was strangely pale and sunken, covered in freckles, the skin pulled taut against his ribs. His feet were shod in knee-high plastic boots. They were spotted with brown paint. “You,” he said, sneering at the Stemples. A hardness filled his eyes. “You've got balls showing your face in public.”

“We need to talk,” Ramon said.

“About your rabbit? I already told you I ain't paying for it. You can try and collect, but then what about my hens?”

His eyes dropped to the carcass in Ramon's hand and widened.

“What the hell is that? Is that a—?”

“A raccoon,” Ramon growled. He thrust it into the man's face.

“Hey! Get that the hell away from me!” He stepped back into the darkness of his house, holding up his hands. His fingernails were filthy, stained with thin lines of black. Droplets of crimson paint glistened in his hair and on his face. “What the hell, Stemple,” he shrieked. “Are you freaking crazy?”

“I found this outside my gate, Locke. There's another one inside my yard. Dead. Yesterday it was a half dozen dead rats.”

“I didn't do— Hey, you sure that thing's dead, man?”

“Of course, I'm sure! What I want to know is why you're throwing them there.”

“Rame,” Lyssa interrupted. She was staring at the dead raccoon, unable to meet Mister Locke's furious gaze.

Mister Locke's gazed flicked between them. If he seemed grateful for Lyssa's intervention, he didn't show it. In fact, he didn't show anything on his face but confusion. “It's not
my
poison. I swear to you! I only used it that one time. I stopped after I found the dead bat.”

“What dead bat?”

“I threw it away! I figured it was just someone angry at you two for — well, you know — and they just got the wrong house. It was on my front porch.”

But Ramon was beyond reason. He flung the limp corpse at Mister Locke. “That's bullshit! Don't you fucking lie to me! You stay away from my family, and if I catch you coming anywhere near my property or my family again, I'll call the police!”

“God damn it, Stemple! I just told you— You know what? Go right the fuck ahead and call the police, because I'll tell them you just threw this thing at me! Now get the hell out of my house! And take this with you!” He stepped forward and dragged the carcass across the floor with his foot. “I told you I had nothing to do with this. Now get the fuck out of my house!”

Lyssa stopped at the door. “Sorry to interrupt your painting,” she said.

She got a faceful of pine for her response.

 

“He's lying.”

Lyssa glared at her husband. She was shaking so badly that she could barely stand. She slumped into a chair in their kitchen and set her hands on the table. But even that didn't seem stable enough to hold her.

This is what it feels like to lose control. This is what it would be like to melt down.

Ramon was pacing, muttering beneath his breath.

“The goddamn coward is lying through his teeth. Did he think we wouldn't know it was him?”

“He said it wasn't.”

“And you believe him?” Ramon shrieked. There was a madness in his eyes, an insanity that scared Lyssa. “After what he did to Cassie's rabbit? He fucking murdered it!”

“Ramon!
Shh!
”

There was a sound from the second floor. Cassie was awake.

Ramon straightened up, but his gaze never left hers.

“I told Cassie yesterday that we wouldn't leave yet,” Lyssa told him. “But now I think we should try again. Please. I keep getting the feeling that something bad is about to happen.”

“You want to leave now? With that . . . that nutcase over there killing animals and throwing them into our yard? I'm calling the police!”

“But you attacked him!”

“I did no such thing. I threw the raccoon onto the floor.”

“I don't think that's going to matter.”

A siren rose in the distance, and they both immediately quieted. It continued to grow louder.

“Good,” Ramon said. Standing tall and straightening his shirt, he repeated himself. “I hope he did call them. When they hear what he did . . . .”

He walked over to the window and looked out, even though it was impossible to see much of anything from this angle.

But the siren was drawing away from them now. They listened to it fade into the distance.

After a few minutes, Lyssa tried to stand, but her feet kept tangling in the chair legs. She pushed back and the chair tipped and fell to the floor with a clatter. She still couldn't seem to extract herself from it. It was trapping her against the table, holding her there. With a whimper of frustration, she kicked it away.

But not even that caused Ramon to turn and face her.

“I'm going to check on Cassie,” she said.

“Good.”

“I'm going to tell her that we're leaving.”

She hesitated a moment, waiting for him to say something, anything, but he didn't. She wasn't even sure he'd heard her.

* * *

She found Cassie in a crumpled heap in the hallway, and when she tried to rouse the girl she was alarmed at how hot she felt.

“Cassie!”

Lyssa grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her a quick shake. “Cassie, wake up!”

But the girl's head lolled limply on her neck, her breaths coming in quick, rattling puffs.

“Cassie, please.” She pressed a thumb against one of her eyelids and forced the eye open. The pupil instantly contracted to a pinpoint and Cassie flinched and tried to turn away. “Wake up, honey. Can you hear me?”

A low moan escaped the girl's lips. “Mama?”

“Listen, honey, we need to pack up. It's time to go.”

Cassie raised an arm a few inches and tried to push her mother's hands away. “Noooooo . . . . Sssstay. Readddy.” The hand dropped and her body relaxed again.

“Let's get you dressed and ready to go.”

She left her lying in the hallway and hurried into the bathroom for the thermometer before remembering it was still on the bedside table. Once again, the earthy smell in Cassie's room assaulted her nose. This time, she didn't hesitate to draw back the top sheets. She let out an explosive breath when she found the bed empty.

And yet, that smell . . . .

She checked under the bed and in the closet. Finally, she checked her daughter's dresser. But there was no body. Not even a trace of dirt.

Snatching up the thermometer, she went back into the hallway and swiped the sensor across Cassie's forehead. The display showed a slight fever of a hundred and one, though her skin felt a lot warmer than that. A second reading confirmed the first.

Nothing worth getting excited about.

Nevertheless, Lyssa took a moment to grab the medicine kit from the bathroom and stuffed it into her pack.

“Cassie?” She bent down and placed her mouth next to her daughter's ear. “We're going for a ride. Just for a few days, I promise. I need you to wake up.” She tried to pull the girl's arms and once more became alarmed at the girl's lethargy. Why wouldn't she wake?

The sudden banging at their front door startled her. She let go of Cassie, who dropped back to the hallway floor, her head bent at an awkward angle.

“Answer the fucking door, Stemple!” Sam Locke shouted. “Open this goddamn door right now! I'm sick of this shit!”

She could hear Ramon's footsteps as he ran out of the kitchen and into the back of the house somewhere. She heard a cabinet open, some rattling. Then more footsteps, this time toward the front door.

“Get off my porch!”

“Open up!”

“I'm through talking with you! You're a god damn maniac. You should be put in jail for animal cruelty!”

“Let me in,” Sam growled, his voice almost too low for Lyssa to hear.

Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin.

“Screw you, Locke! Do you realize what you've done to my little girl? And the bullshit with the rac—”

Sam started hammering on the door, harder and harder until Lyssa could feel the house shaking. But what frightened her more was the way his words were getting all jumbled, as if his anger had taken away his ability to speak.

“Get off my porch, Locke,” Ramon shouted above the din. “I'm warning you!”

She heard what sounded like the ratchet of a gun slide.

“I'm giving you till the count of five, Locke, and then I'm going to start shooting.”

Lyssa's face went ice cold. She jumped to her feet. She needed to stop what was happening.

“One!”

“Let me in.”

“Two!”

“God damn it, Stemple sonofabitch fuckingstemp
argghhhhh!
”

“Three!”

The pounding stopped. Lyssa could hear the man shuffling about now, his shoes scraping the wooden floor of the porch. The doorknob rattled. “Stemp—
huhn
Arghhh! Open up!”

“Four!”

He was scratching at the door.

“Fi—”

The door slammed against its frame, followed by the blast of the gun.

Silence.

Then: “Oh shit. Shit. I didn't mean— Sam?”

Lyssa's legs caved beneath her. She leaned onto the railing of the staircase and slid down. Nothing seemed to work. Her legs were numb, her hands useless. Her face was sliding off her skull. “
No
,” she managed to get out, before sucking in another inadequate breath.
Oh god, Ramon, what have you done?

There was a ringing sound, her eardrums ringing. It sounded so far away.

“Sam? Stand back. I'm opening this door. I don't want trouble.”

The ringing stopped, then started again.

Somebody should get that before the answering machine picks up.

“Sam? I don't want trouble.”

But then she heard Sam's heavy footsteps, moving away across the porch, clomping down the steps. This galvanized her. She pulled herself up using the railing and managed to get herself down the remaining stairs.

“Ramon?” she said, her voice wavering.

And the phone was still ringing.

“Sam?” she heard him say. He still hadn't opened the door. “It was an accident, I swear. I didn't mean— I mean, I wasn't going to shoot. Sam, answer me.”

She turned the corner, stumbled through the living room and stepped into the front hallway. Ramon was standing at the open door, the pistol dangling forgotten in his hand. The sharp tang of burning gunpowder seared the inside of her nose.

“What did you do?” she whispered.

He turned toward her, a horrified look in his eyes. They didn't even flicker when the phone rang again, didn't even seem to register the sound. “I told him I was going to shoot. I wasn't really going to. It was an accident.”

She found herself moving again, racing down the hall. She tried to pass him, to call Sam back, to make sure he was all right. Ramon reached out and wrenched her hand away from the knob. He shoved her to one side and slammed the door shut. He put an eye up to the peephole and looked out. “No, he's fine. I can see him. He's walking home.”

“You shot the gun! He's going to call the police!”

“It was an accident!”

“There's a hole in the wall!
A hole in our house!
What are we going to tell the cops? We don't need this right now, Ramon!”

She heard her husband's voice on the answering machine asking the caller to leave a message.

“I said I didn't hit him! Look for yourself! He's walking home!”

“He could be hurt.” Lyssa tried again to open the door. Once again, Ramon stopped her, forcing his body between hers and the door.