Widow Town (5 page)

“You didn’t answer me, sir,” Ruthers said as they sat down on either side of the table.

“I need some food in me, and another beer before we get into that.”

“Yes sir.”

They ate in silence with only the passing breeze fluttering the leaves along with the chime’s voice to break it. The sky became a patchwork quilt, turning from a pale cobalt to purple with edges of black bleeding into stars. Two porch lights came on automatically with the falling dusk. When they’d finished eating, Gray cleared the table and placed another two beers between them before sitting down to stare into the deepening night.

“My father named me for the war,” he said after a
while.

“The war, sir?”

Gray glanced at his deputy and sat back in his chair. “The war that never came.”

“I’m not following.”

“MacArthur, it was the name of a famous general in the second world war. Does it ring a bell?”

“Not especially I guess, but history wasn’t my strongest subject.”

Gray smiled. “I love history, but not in the way historians love it. Historians keep the past like a display, something to look at but never touch.” Gray sipped at his beer. “My father was a realist, he worked hard every day and read every night. He watched the way things were going, the tide of time you might call it. He knew over forty years ago that something had to give in the world. The pollution was only then getting addressed and crops were dying in droves. The veil of society was getting thin. All forward progress was stilted and people were getting closer and closer to an edge.”

“A war.”

Gray nodded. “That’s like a release valve for the human race, sick as it sounds, it’s a necessity, or an inevitability, not sure there’s a difference. War is a forest fire. When the woods become too cluttered to grow new trees, a fire starts, cleanses the ground along with much of the mature forest, but it’s essential. When it’s over, things begin anew. The ash from life breeds new growth, a fresh start. As ugly as it is, that’s the truth. Every end is harsh before a beginning.” Gray looked down at his lap and spun an empty bottle in place. “So my father thought there was no way I wouldn’t be involved in the next war, I’d have been just the right age, so he named me what he did. I suppose he thought it would give me confidence or be a talisman against getting killed, I’m not sure. Instead of war we got innovation.” Gray motioned to the sky. “The cleaners up above burning some crystal ore mined from Mars, belching out pure oxygen into the atmosphere. We have cures for cancer, Alzheimer’s, and diabetes. We got plants that stay green without water and can stand gallons of pesticides but are doing God knows what to our insides, and we have a nice assurance that goes even further back that no psychopaths will be stalking our streets at night.”

Ruthers swallowed a mouthful of beer and stared
at the sheriff. “You mean FV5?”

Gray nodded. “Your parents I’m sure weren’t able to dodge the mandatory jabs for their kids, just like mine, right.” Gray pulled up the sleeve of his
T-shirt to expose the orange line of five dots running straight down his shoulder, each no larger than a pencil eraser. Ruthers slid his sleeve up, exposing the exact same formation. Gray let his hand drop back to the table. “Anyway, why should they be afraid of something that’s guaranteed to keep their son or daughter from becoming a crazed murderer?”

“
Are you against the jabs, sir?”

“No, I can’t say that I am since there hasn’t been a recorded serial killer in the last
forty years. All those potential victims are safe, lived out their lives without ever imagining that they could’ve been the target of something monstrous. Just by turning off one tiny gene inside each person born, you assure everyone that they couldn’t possibly be a sociopath or progress into a psychopath.” Gray drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “What bothers me is that gene is there with every birth. The possibility of becoming something evil,” Gray tapped his chest once, “is right here inside all of us.”

The yard was quiet except for the trickle of the choking stream. The birds were silent, gone back to their roosts to wait for the rain that Gray co
uld smell coming from the west.

“So you think the Olson
murders and the Jacobses were—”

“I’m not saying anything yet, Joseph, and I’m well aware that plain old murder still happens every
day, I saw enough of it in the cities to last a lifetime.” Gray finished his beer and looked his deputy in the eyes. “But, something doesn’t match up here, something is off. A month ago the Olsons burn up in a fire started by someone else. No suspects or arrests, not that I’d expect any from Mitchel and his county. Last night the Jacobses are slaughtered, and then their killers try to set the house on fire.”

“To cover their tracks.” The deputy’s eyes were wide in the
faint glow of the porch lights.

“
Maybe.”

“But that would mean someone would’ve had to hidden their kids away from the start, had them at home, never brought them into town, no one could see they didn’t have
the Line on their shoulders, otherwise they’d be persecuted, run out of town.”

“And then,” Gray continued, sitting forward, “The chances of them being a full blown
psychopath would be infinitesimal.”

“Exactly, so…”

“So that leaves us with one of two options, Joseph. One, someone did just that, kept their children hidden from the system, kept them from getting the jabs and those kids just by chance became monsters or, two, the shot didn’t work on them like it did everyone else.”

“But, sir, I read about FV5
, it was mandatory for the service. They tested a variation of it for thirty years on known serial killers, there was a one hundred percent success rate at nulling the gene before they ever brought it to public awareness.”

“I know, but if I’ve learned
anything from history it’s this: life is not static. It moves, changes, adapts. We think we’re smarter than nature, but we’re not. Every step we take in fighting it is a step in the wrong direction. We come closer to the cliff, Joseph, not farther away.” Gray sighed. “But the most obvious answer is normally the correct one so—”

“So that leaves us with
—”

“Option one.” Gray leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees before staring into the darkness. “If I’m right, Joseph, the people who killed the Olsons and the
Jacobses not only don’t have the Line, they’re the first serial killers America has seen in over forty years.”

~

The rain woke him a little past two in the morning. It wasn’t a violent crashing of thunder or even a staccato pulse of lightning that brought him up out of a dream where he’d been running from something massive that blotted out the sun. It was the soft tapping of raindrops against the window.

Gray turned his head toward the sound, the room so dark even the stormy night outside looked bright. He waited, blinking at the clarity of awareness, his breathing,
in and out, the softness of cool sheets over his body, the drumming rain. Alone.

He stood from the bed and crossed to the window,
his own formless shadow appearing as a reflection in the glass. A thin wall of clouds moved across the sky, already broken in some places, their mass filtering through to the stars beyond. He watched the rain fall, trying to believe that it would make a difference, that tomorrow’s heat would be lessened, the drying riverbeds quenched.

He
went to the adjoining bathroom and drank straight from the tap, sucking down mouthfuls of water to wash away the stale taste of beer. He paused at the foot of the bed as he walked back into the room, looking at the sheets as if they might wrap around him, constrict his breathing until he struggled no more. Changing directions, he moved into the hall overlooking the rest of the house, feet silent on the wood floor, patters of rain above him. The door appeared to his left and he finally looked at it. Normally he hurried past it in the mornings and looked the opposite way at night when he went to bed, choosing to not see it.

He stood before it now, taking in the decorative oak panels. His fingers traced the flared grooves of trim and settled on the two screw holes, their edges small but
sharp, always catching his skin. Gray reached down and held the doorknob for a moment, waiting for what had moved him here to turn him away again, back to bed to dream of the crushing mountain falling down upon him. He opened the door.

Cool light filtered in through the one window taking up most of the east wall. The carpet beneath his feet shushed with each step until he stood in the center of the room. His hands found the edge of the crib, the wood so smooth. It creaked a little, it was the only thing he hadn’t made in the room, his work schedule over a year ago
too heavy to allow him the time to do one justice. A toy box stood beside the crib, the colorful letters he’d carved and painted were indefinable dark shapes. The little changing table was after that and he found himself standing over it. The smell of baby powder, faint but there, hung above it. The sign with two screws backed out of its front lay on its surface, catching what little light came in through the rain-slicked window.

Gray traced the name with a
finger, ran in the grooves created by his tools, made to hang on the outside of the door proclaiming someone who would never sleep in the room again.

He pulled his hand back, let it fall to his side before turning away. Without a look,
he walked from the room, pulling the door shut behind him with a sound like that of a baby’s breath.

Ryan was in a boat, half full of water, barely floating.

The lake lapped
against its sides, its iron-gray surface trying to get in, to pull the boat down, and he wished that it would float. He wished it would glide on, somehow draining itself of the weight of all the gallons. He had an idea that he could feel the water sloshing within his own stomach, too much to hold and still be alive, but there it was. The edge of the lake was a silver border cutting against rocks and sand alike. He knew if he took one step forward he’d fall, fall and drown beneath the waves, his insides already full of water, he wouldn’t have to go much farther to inhale a bit more. He would sink into the blackened depths and reach toward the surface of a place he didn’t know anymore, didn’t care to know.

But the boat, the boat was sad how it barely floated and he wished it would sit higher in the water. He wanted to
bail it out, but that wouldn’t do since he was full of water himself. And now the water was in his nose, coming out of his mouth, he choked on it, spluttered, sat up—

—
and awoke to someone standing over his bed.

He didn’t cry out, not because he didn’t want to, but because he recognized the shape; the humped shoulders, the rounded head looking down at him. Only a sliver of light fell into the room from the hall but it was enough
to see the grin on Adam’s face.

“I just had a dream and had to tell you about it,” Adam
said, the smile never leaving.

“Okay,” Ryan said, his voice clogged with sleep, his own nightmare flattening out into a gray sheet of memory
, the water flowing away into nothing.

“There was a spider the size of a cat eating me,” Adam said, rubbing his stomach. “Right here. She was huge and black and had really sharp teeth. She tore into me so deep I thought she would going to eat right through me
and the pain was so nice, like right after you come, like that.”

Ryan sat up a little, tried not to slide away from his brother. “You shou
ld go back to your room, Adam.”

“Not done yet. Then she quit eat
ing and came out of my stomach and looked at me and I felt warm but I was sad that she was leaving.” Adam leaned down a little and Ryan braced himself. “But she wasn’t leaving at all, Ryan, the warmth was her giving her babies to me in my belly and I knew she loved me then and so would her babies.”

Ryan’s lower lip trembled but he
nodded. “That’s a good dream.”

“Uh huh.”
Adam didn’t move, his expression the same, still smiling.

Ryan was about to try to get past him, get out from under the glazed stare when the slat of light from the hall grew, th
e door opening more.

Darrin stood there, an outline, not moving
. “The fuck are you two doing?”

Adam leaned back and Ryan managed to sit up all the way. “Just t
ellin’ him a dream,” Adam said.

“
Yeah, I got that. What if Dad had heard you? What would he think?”

Adam shrugged. “Nothin’.”

Darrin moved into the room, smooth, without sound. “Not ‘nothin’,’ dumbshit, hearing you talk like that he would’ve had you locked up and on meds before the sun rose.”

Adam slumped a little. “Sorry.”

Darrin stopped and sat in a chair beside Ryan’s bed, his face half shrouded in shadow. “You have to be careful, never know who’s listening.” Adam nodded and looked at his feet, shuffling them a little. “What?”

“I went back there
,” Adam said.

Darrin’s head tilted, an eagle wat
ching a mouse. “You what?”

“I went back there, to the hou
se we were at the other night.”

“Why?”

“I was missing a screw from clackers. I think it fell out in the house somewhere.”

Darrin dropped his forehead into his hand, rubbed it. “And what happened?
”

“The sheriff was there.”

Darrin froze. He looked like The Thinker statue Ryan had seen in a textbook once.

“Did he see you?”

Adam shook his head.

“I can’t hear you shaking your head,” Darrin said,
his face fully coming into view in the cold light. His features were sharp stone, eyes cutting.

“No, he didn’t.”

“You’re sure? I don’t really trust your judgment after you went back there.”

Adam’s head shook harder. “No, I was standing behind a tree in the brush, he didn’t see me.”

Darrin nodded. “If you ever do something like that again without talking to me first, you’ll wake up being gutted, understand?”

“Yes.”

“You’re sure you lost the screw there, not in the van or somewhere here?”

“Not sure but I think so.”

Darrin stood and moved closer to them. “We allow ourselves these little pleasures because it’s what makes it fun, it’s the whole purpose to what we do, who we are.” He shifted his gaze between the two of them. “But if we mess up, one step out of line, everything comes down.”

“What do we do if th
ey find the screw?” Adam asked.

“We don’t do anything. That sc
rew could’ve come from anywhere, plus we were all wearing gloves.”

“Wh
at about the sheriff?” Ryan asked.

Darrin’s eyes found him in the semi-dark. “Are you scared of him, Ry?”

“I’m scared he’ll figure it out.”

Darrin leaned closer, the same smell coming off of him as the night before. “He’s not going to figure anything out
, he’s a dumbfuck county sheriff, he’ll think the same as everyone else.”

“He used to be an investigator in Minneapolis,
he’s not stupid.”

Darrin sneered, pulling up the sleeve of his
T-shirt to expose the line of dots running down his shoulder. “This means we’re safe, little brother, and we have the medical records to back it up.”

“But the house didn’t burn,” Rya
n said, his voice quavering a little.

Darrin looked like he might strike him. Ryan waited, wondering where the blow would land that their father wouldn’t see.
“That doesn’t matter, they’ll think it was someone robbing the place, just like we set it up to look like,” Darrin said finally. He smiled and it was like a knife blade in the darkness. “We’re fine, boys, don’t worry and don’t do anything stupid.” He looked back and forth again until they both nodded. “Good.”

Darrin move
d toward the door, stopping before he entered the hallway. His head turned over his shoulder and he stared at them with an eye they couldn’t see. “He came tonight.”

There was a drawn out silence
taut as a high wire.

“Already?” Ryan asked, the incredulous sound of his voice making him wince.

Darrin turned back to them, now a silhouette again. “You don’t sound excited, Ry-Ry.”

“It’
s not that, it’s just so soon.”

“You’re right, it is.”

“Why didn’t you come get us?” Adam asked.

“Because I didn’t expect him
this quickly either.”

“What’d he say?” Adam asked, stepping closer to Dar
rin, a hushed awe to his voice.

Darrin smiled again. Ryan could see the way it crinkled his face in wicked lines that belied all humor. “He’s got big things planned
for us, boys, very big things.”