“Whatever,” said Kent. In his sulk he had followed the mannequin torso to where he had kicked it and now he was stomping on it, cracking up the chest cavity with little pop-pop-pops of shattering plastic.
“Not for a million.” Eric, still perched in a squat by the mouth of the lean-to, pointed the stick at his friend. “But, for a hundred, I’ll poke a hole right here—” He lowered the stick to tap Essie’s right ear. “—and I’ll piss into it.”
Jared could see Essie’s chest rise and fall.
“Seriously? A hundred?” It was clear that Curt was tempted, but a hundred dollars was a significant amount of bread.
“Nah. I’m just teasing.” Eric winked at his buddy. “I wouldn’t make you pay for that. I’ll do it for free.” He leaned over Essie, probing with the tip of the stick to dig through the webbing to her ear.
Jared needed to do something; he couldn’t just watch and record and let them do this to her. So why aren’t you moving? he asked himself, even as his iPhone, squeezed tight in his damp hand, popped up—whoops!—and landed with a crunch in the brush.
6
Even with the pedal to metal, the little animal control pickup would do no more than fifty. Not because of a governor on the engine; the pickup was just old, and on its second trip around the clock. Frank had petitioned the town council for a new one on several occasions, and the answer had always been the same: “We’ll take it under advisement.”
Driving hunched over the wheel, Frank imagined pounding several of those smalltown politicians to a pulp. And what would he say when they begged him to stop? “I’ll take it under advisement.”
He saw women everywhere. None of them were alone. They were clustered in groups of three and four, talking together, embracing, some of them crying. None of them looked at Frank Geary, even when he blew through stop signs and red lights. This is the way Flickinger must drive when he’s stoned, he thought. Watch out, Geary, or you’ll run over someone’s cat. Or someone’s kid.
But Nana! Nana!
His phone went. He pushed ANSWER without looking. It was Elaine, and she was sobbing.
“She’s asleep and won’t wake up and there’s goo all over her face! White goo like cobwebs!”
He passed three women hugging it out on a street corner. They looked like guests on some therapy show. “Is she breathing?”
“Yes . . . yes, I can see the stuff moving . . . fluttering out and then kind of sucking in . . . oh, Frank, I think it’s in her mouth and on her tongue! I’m going to get my nail scissors and cut it off!”
An image filled his mind, one so brilliant and ghastly-real that for a moment the street ahead of him was blotted out: Kinswoman Susannah Brightleaf, battening on her husband’s nose.
“No, El, don’t do that.”
“Why not?”
Watching The Daily Show instead of the news when the biggest thing in history was happening, how stupid could you get? But that was the former Elaine Nutting of Clarksburg, West Virginia. That was Elaine right down to the ground. High on judgmental pronouncements, low on information. “Because it wakes them up, and when they wake up, they’re crazy. No, not crazy. More like rabid.”
“You’re not telling me . . . Nana would never . . .”
If she’s even Nana anymore, Frank thought. Kinsman Brightleaf sure didn’t get the sweet and docile woman he was no doubt used to.
“Elaine . . . honey . . . turn on the television and you’ll see it for yourself.”
“What are we going to do?”
Now you ask me, he thought. Now that your back is to the wall, it’s Oh Frank, what are we going to do? He felt a sour, dismaying satisfaction.
His street. Finally. Thank God. The house was ahead. This was going to be all right. He would make it all right.
“We’re going to take her to the hospital,” he said. “By now they probably know what’s going on.”
They’d better. They’d just better. Because this was Nana. His little girl.
CHAPTER 7
1
While Ree Dempster was chewing her thumbnail bloody, deciding whether or not to drop a dime on Officer Don Peters, a Heathrow to JFK flight, a 767 three hours southwest of London at cruising speed over the Atlantic, radioed to air traffic control to report an outbreak of some sort and consult on the proper course of action.
“We’ve got three passengers, one’s a young girl, and they seem to have developed a—we’re not sure. Doctor onboard is saying that it’s possibly a fungus or a growth. They’re asleep, or at least, they seem to be asleep, and the doctor is telling us their vitals are normal, but there’s concern about their airways being—ah, blocked, so I guess he’s going to—”
The exact nature of the interruption that occurred next was unclear. There was a commotion, metallic clattering and screeching, shouts—“They can’t be in here! Get them out of here!”—and the roar of what sounded like an animal. The cacophony continued for almost four minutes, until the 767’s radar trail broke off, presumably at the moment it made impact with the water.
2
Dr. Clinton Norcross strode down Broadway toward his interview with Evie Black, notepad in his left hand and clicking his pen in his right. His body was in Dooling Correctional, but his mind was wandering around in the dark on Mountain Rest Road and worrying over what it was Lila was lying about. And—maybe—who she was lying about.
A few yards away, upstairs in a B Wing cell, Nell Seeger—Dooling Correctional inmate #4609198-1, five-to-ten (Class B possession with intent to distribute)—sat up in her top bunk to thumb off the television.
The small TV, a flatscreen about as thick as a closed laptop, rested on the ridge at the foot of the bunk. It had been showing the news. Nell’s cellie and off-again on-again lover, Celia Frode, not quite halfway through her one-to-two years (Class D possession, second offense), had been watching from her place at their unit’s single steel desk. She said, “Thank goodness. I can’t take any more of this madness. Now what are you going to do?”
Nell lay back down and rolled over on her side, facing the painted square on the wall where the school pictures of her three kids were pasted in a row. “Nothing personal, darling, but I’m going to take a rest. I’m awful beat.”
“Oh.” Celia understood right away. “Well. All right. Sweet dreams, Nell.”
“I hope so,” said Nell. “Love you. You can have any of my stuff that you want.”
“Love you, too, Nell.” Celia put her hand on Nell’s shoulder. Nell patted it once and then curled up. Celia sat down at their cell’s small desk to wait.
When Nell was snoring softly, Celia stood up and peeked at her. Strands were curling around her cellie’s face, fluttering and falling and splitting into more strands, waving like seaweed in a gentle tide. Nell’s eyes were rolling under her eyelids. Was she dreaming about them, together, on the outside, sitting on a picnic blanket somewhere, maybe the beach? No, probably not. Probably Nell was dreaming about her kids. She wasn’t the most demonstrative partner that Celia had ever taken up with, sure wasn’t much of a conversationalist, but Nell had a good heart, and she loved her kids, was always writing to them.