7
Judge Oscar Silver rarely drove anymore, and when he did, he no longer exceeded forty miles an hour, no matter how many cars stacked up behind him. If they began to honk and tailgate, he found a place to pull over and let them go by, then resumed his stately pace. He was aware that both his reflexes and his vision had declined. In addition, he had suffered three heart attacks, and knew that the bypass operation performed on his failing pump at St. Theresa’s two years ago would only hold the final infarction at bay for so long. He was at peace with that, but he had no wish to die behind the wheel, where a final swerve might take one or more innocent people with him. At only forty (less, within the city limits), he thought he would have a fair chance to apply braking and shift into park before the lights went out for good.
Today was different, however. Once he was beyond Ball’s Ferry and on the Old Coughlin Road, he increased his speed until the needle hovered at sixty-five, territory it hadn’t explored in five years or more. He had reached Rhinegold on his cell, and Rhinegold was willing to talk (although the judge, a crafty old soul, hadn’t wanted to discuss the subject of their confab on the phone—probably a needless precaution, but discretion had ever been his byword), and that was good news. The bad news: Silver suddenly found that he did not trust Frank Geary, who talked so easily about gathering a bunch of men and storming the prison. He had sounded reasonable enough back at the Olympia, but the situation was utterly unreasonable. The judge didn’t care for how practical Frank made such a move sound, when it ought to be an absolute last resort.
The windshield wipers clicked back and forth, clearing the thin rain. He turned on the radio and tuned in the all-news station in Wheeling. “Most city services have been shut down until further notice,” the announcer said, “and I want to repeat that the nine o’clock curfew will be strictly enforced.”
“Good luck with that,” the judge murmured.
“Now, recapping our top story. So-called Blowtorch Brigades, goaded by Internet-fueled fake news that respiration exhaled through the growths—or cocoons—surrounding the sleeping women is spreading the Aurora plague, have been reported in Charleston, Atlanta, Savannah, Dallas, Houston, New Orleans, and Tampa.” The announcer paused, and when he resumed, his flat twang had become more pronounced. Folksier. “Neighbors, I’m proud to say none of these ignorant mobs have been operating here in Wheeling. We all have womenfolks we love like mad, and killing them in their sleep, no matter how unnatural that sleep may be, would be a terrible thing to do.”
He pronounced terrible as turrible.
Judge Silver’s Land Rover was nearing the outer limits of Dooling’s neighbor, Maylock. Rhinegold’s house in Coughlin was on the other side, a drive of another twenty minutes or so.
“The National Guard has been called out in all the cities where those Brigades have been at work, and they have orders to shoot to kill if those superstitious fools won’t cease and desist. I say amen to that. The CDC has repeated that there is no truth whatsoever to—”
The windshield was fogging up. Judge Silver leaned to his right, never taking his eyes from the road, and flipped on the defroster. The fan whooshed. On its wind, clouds of small brown moths spewed from the vents, filling the cabin and circling the judge’s head. They lit in his hair and battered his cheeks. Worst of all, they spun before his eyes, and something one of his old aunts had told him long ago, when he was just an impressionable boy, recurred to him with the brilliance of a proven fact, like up is up and down is down.
“Don’t ever rub your eyes after touching a moth, Oscar,” she had said. “The dust from their wings will get in there and you’ll go blind.”
“Get away!” Judge Silver yelled. He took his hands off the wheel and beat at his face. Moths continued to pour from the vents—hundreds of them, perhaps thousands. The Land Rover’s cabin became a swirling brown mist. “Get away, get away, get aw—”
A huge weight settled on the left side of his chest. Pain hammered down his left arm like electricity. He opened his mouth to cry out and moths flew in, crawling on his tongue and tickling the lining of his cheeks. With his last struggling breath he pulled them down his throat, where they clogged his windpipe. The Land Rover veered left; an approaching truck veered right just in time to avoid it, ending up in the ditch, canted but not quite toppling. There was no ditch to avoid on the other side of the road—just the guardrails separating the Dorr’s Hollow Bridge from the open air and the stream beneath. Silver’s vehicle snapped the guardrails and pitched over. The Land Rover went end-for-end into the water below. Judge Silver, by then already dead, was ejected through the windshield and into Dorr’s Hollow Stream, a tributary of Ball Creek. One of his loafers came off and floated downstream, shipping water and then sinking.
The moths exited the overturned vehicle, now bubbling its way down into the water, and flew back toward Dooling in a flock.
8
“I hated to do that,” Eve said—speaking not to her guests, Clint felt, but to herself. She wiped a single tear from the corner of her left eye. “The more time I spend here, the more human I become. I had forgotten that.”
“What are you talking about, Evie?” Clint asked. “What did you hate to do?”
“Judge Silver was trying to bring in outside help,” she said. “It might not have made any difference, but I couldn’t take the chance.”
“Did you kill him?” Angel asked, sounding interested. “Use your special powers an all?”
“I had to. From this point forward, what happens in Dooling has to stay in Dooling.”
“But . . .” Michaela rubbed a hand down her face. “What’s happening in Dooling is happening everywhere. It’s going to happen to me.”
“Not for awhile,” Evie said. “And you won’t need any more stimulants, either.” She extended a loose fist through the prison bars, extended a finger, and beckoned. “Come to me.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” Rand said, as Garth overlapped him, saying, “Don’t be stupid, Mickey.” He grabbed her forearm.
“What do you think, Clint?” Evie asked, smiling.
Knowing he was giving in—not just to this, but to everything—Clint said, “Let her go.”
Garth released his grip. As if hypnotized, Michaela took two steps forward. Evie put her face against the bars, her eyes on Michaela’s. Her lips parted.
“Lesbo stuff!” Angel crowed. “Turn on the cameras, freaks, the muff-divin comes next!”