by Siara Brandt
They didn’t know that the number of shots that had already been administered, both today and in previous weeks, here in Stone Creek and in other places all around the world, was staggering. Even the people who were supposed to be keeping track were having trouble keeping up with the statistics.
Floy, whose hand had unconsciously drifted to the hard, hot swelling on his own arm, warned Odis, “You’d better come back for your shot. They’ll come and get you if you don’t.” Getting no reaction, he tried a different tactic. “It’s for your own good.” He then repeated a few of the catchy slogans that had been drummed into his head. “No shot, no immunity. Don’t be a walking, ticking time bomb of contagion.”
Odis didn’t reply. He merely squinted at the horizon where there wasn’t a single cloud showing anywhere in the blue sky and said, “Storm brewing. A bad one.”
Although she could see no sign of storm clouds anywhere, Odis was probably right, Lise thought to herself as she put her camera away. As for her, storm or no storm, she had to wrap this up fast and get going. Her mother would be like a virtual storm herself if she was late for the wake. Her job was done here. People were dispersing, making their way for their cars. They didn’t know, none of them knew, that for some of them, the ones who would have to come back for their shots, it made all the difference in the world.
Chapter 3
The sun was almost straight overhead. It had been a long walk across the fields in the midday summer heat. Hot, sweating, out of breath, and about to die of thirst, Hezzie swatted at a swarm of gnats she had just walked into. Like always, you didn’t see them until it was too late. As she struggled to keep up with Noby, she was starting to think this wasn’t such a good idea. For one thing, she hadn’t realized how far they would have to walk. Noby hadn’t told her where they were going. Secondly, he should have thought to bring something to drink if it was going to be such a long walk. Third, Noby had been unusually quiet the whole way here. That wasn’t like him. In fact, Noby’s whole manner was starting to give her an anxious feeling in the pit of her stomach, the kind she got when she knew she was about to be in trouble for something she had, or maybe she hadn’t, done. Like coming here instead of getting her vaccination at the park. All because of Noby, who could have just told her what it was he had seen, instead of acting so mysterious and making her come all the way out here to see it for herself.
No, she definitely should have stood her ground and refused to come with him because she was getting a bad feeling that Noby was leading her into something that she was going to be very sorry she had agreed to.
But it was Noby, and Noby was nothing if not persistent, to the point of badgering when he wanted to get his way. She had known him all her life, and, cousin or no cousin, he could definitely be a pest when he couldn’t let go of a thing.
As she walked, Hezzie looked at the woods all around her. They seemed unusually quiet. Not peaceful quiet, but quiet in a strange kind of way. Like something was about to happen. And then she realized what it was. The weather was about to change. She could feel it in the air and see it in the changing quality of the light. Most people wouldn’t even notice the subtle differences, but Hezzie had always been sensitive to changes in the weather. In fact, her mother constantly accused her of being too sensitive about everything. But how did you change something like that? Was she supposed to pretend she didn’t see things coming?
As they crossed the blacktop and headed deeper into another section of forest, one that would lead them along Stone Creek, which wound everywhere through the county, Hezzie felt even more acutely the impending change in the weather. She slapped at a bug that lighted on her arm as they passed a no-trespassing sign. The faded sign was barely legible and had been there for as long as she could remember. Trespassing sign or not, Noby didn’t even slow down. At this point, Hezzie wasn’t even sure she wanted to see-
Whatever it was.
A part of her was curious. Of course she was. Noby had only told her that she wasn’t going to believe it even when she did see it. She had read something in Noby’s eyes when he had told her that, thought she had seen fear even, and that wasn’t like Noby. He was never afraid.
“I’m supposed to be at the park getting my vaccination,” she panted behind Noby’s back. She needn’t have pointed that out. Noby already knew where she was supposed to be. He was supposed to be there with her, too. “Do you know how much trouble I’m going to be in if I go home and I didn’t get a shot?”
“About as much trouble as when you threw that rock at my head?”
Of course he would bring that up. Even though the rock-throwing incident had happened years ago, he still brought it up. And she still felt bad about it. She had been immediately remorseful when she saw all the blood, although even though to this day she didn’t remember what they had been fighting about.
“Are . . . we . . . close?” she panted breathlessly as they headed up a steep hill.
Noby nodded and as she re-processed his reticence, suddenly she wasn’t sure she even wanted to know what it was he was taking her to see.
They soon emerged into a bright patch of sunlight. Right before them was the old road that used to lead into town. It was just a dirt trail now with high embankments on either side, one that was only used by people on four-wheelers. It didn’t even take you all the way to town anymore. It ended up dropping off abruptly where the creek had carved out a new tributary years and years ago.
The trail soon led down into heavy shade again. Pinecones were scattered everywhere and the air grew pungent with the scent of pine resin. They soon reached the old Pidgin place, or the place where the house had once stood. There was just a section of rusted iron fence now to mark where the driveway had been. Even that was half hidden in the weeds. Some daylilies straggled among the weeds at the bottom of a slight rise where the house used to be. Just past the site of the old house, Noby came to a dead stop. Right behind him, Hezzie stopped abruptly, too.
“It’s over there,” Noby said, a little breathless now himself as he pointed to the dancing shimmer of sunlight on water.
It. He still wasn’t telling her what it was and she didn’t see anything from where they were standing. The only movement was when a slight breeze sent a series of ripples across the pond.
“Scared?” Noby asked, still looking straight ahead but speaking his thoughts out loud for the first time as they started to make their way down to the pond.
“Are you?” Hezzie threw back at him. No way was she going to admit to being afraid. Not to Noby. She stepped in front of him to show how afraid she was not.
“It’s in the water.” When she hesitated, she felt Noby’s hand in the center of her shoulder blades. He gave her a soft shove. “Go on. If you’re not afraid.”
She did go. Reluctantly, maybe, but they were here now and curiosity was getting the better of her.
At first she didn’t see anything. And then she stopped and straightened, not taking her eyes off the dark, fluid shadow floating just below the surface of the murky green water.
Noby grabbed a hold of her arm and urged her even closer. “You need to go right to the edge.”
With Noby at her side, she moved forward. One step, two . . . three. She could see it clearly now, the long strands of dark hair floating right below the surface of the water. Above something that was completely submerged under the water. Shocked, she realized it was- a person.
Suddenly Hezzie wanted to be anywhere but here. Noby still wasn’t saying anything. He just stared down at the water like he was mesmerized.
It was Hezzie who finally broke the spell by asking, “Do you know who it is?”
Noby just shook his head, still silent.
“We need to tell someone about this,” Hezzie said, looking up at him.
“What if they think I did it?”
She continued to look at him and frowned. “Why would they?”
“Innocent people get accused of crimes all the time.”
Anyone
who watched TV knew that was true. But-
“But we can’t just- do nothing,” Hezzie argued. And then, after thinking it over, she said, “We could say we found it together.”
Noby didn’t say anything. He got down on his haunches, picked up a stick and leaned closer to the edge of the pond. As he wriggled his feet, carefully bracing himself more securely, he extended the stick towards the thing in the water.
Alarmed, Hezzie cried out, “What are you doing?”
But Noby, intent only on what he was doing, didn’t seem to hear her.
“You shouldn’t touch it,” Hezzie warned, a little louder this time. For some reason, she was terrified at the thought of Noby touching it.
Again, there was only silence from Noby.
“You’re not thinking of pulling her out of there, are you?”
Hezzie had already decided that it was a she. Because of the long hair.
This time, Noby did answer her question. “I just want to see if it’s someone we know.”
Which made it worse. So much worse. Hezzie didn’t want to see someone’s dead face, especially if it had an identity to it. What if she could never get the image out of her mind?
“Shouldn’t we tell someone else and let them do it?” she pleaded.
The stick made contact. The body moved. Only a little, but it was enough. Hezzie got a whiff of the odor permeating the air. It was awful. She recognized it as the unmistakable smell of death. She put her hand over her nose and mouth as if she could keep the smell out that way, but she couldn’t help gagging as it got inside her nostrils and then her lungs.
Noby gave her a silent look over his shoulder and, ignoring her again, he shifted even closer to the water, so close that liquid mud oozed deeply around his shoes.
“Don’t go in the water,” Hezzie shrilled, even more alarmed. “What if it’s- ”
“It’s what?”
“Contagious.”
“Not if she was murdered,” Noby murmured, still with his back to her.
“You mean- ” Hezzie looked around anxiously. She hadn’t even considered that. What was she was looking for? A murderer?
“What if- ” she began again, more worried this time. What if this was a crime scene. In that case, nothing should be disturbed. Everyone knew that.
“Noby.”
“Shhh!”
“I don’t want to be here anymore. Please don’t touch it. We need to tell someone- ”
But Noby still didn’t listen to her and against Hezzie’s better judgment, she stayed and watched as Noby leaned even further forward and poked the stick gingerly into the midst of the black floating hair that had tiny green bubbles clinging to each dark strand. Working the stick carefully beneath the fluid tentacles of hair, sending big rings rippling outward across the pond, he used two hands to pull upward.
Hezzie couldn’t suppress a gasp as the upper half of the head emerged. But in spite of her shock, she stared with morbid fascination at the black hair clinging to the dead white face, the almost tortured expression as Noby pulled harder. The mouth was slightly open and greenish-brown pond water dribbled from it. But then Hezzie’s morbid fascination gave way to terror. The eyes, she saw, were open. They were flat gray, pale. As Hezzie watched, the colorless eyes rolled back into the woman’s head.
At the same time, Noby yelled and scrambled backwards up the bank, dropping the stick as he did so. He lost his footing on the soft bank and there was a horrifying moment when Hezzie thought he would fall in right on top of the body.
As Noby stood panting beside her now, Hezzie wished even more that she wasn’t even here, that she had never come here in the first place. She knew that there was some tragic story behind this death, this interrupted life, that there was some mystery that needed solving. But right now-
Right now they needed to leave and tell someone so that they could handle it. So that they could give a name to the poor woman, whoever she was.
And so, without even consulting Noby, Hezzie turned and was already headed back to the road when she came to a dead stop. As she stood there listening, a new fear clenched at her stomach.
She had a terrible, unshakable feeling they weren’t alone, that they were being watched.
That’s when something moved in her peripheral vision. As she spun around to face the woods to her left, she saw it right away. Or rather, she saw him. It was just the dark outline of a man. He was far away and half hidden by brush, standing motionless in the shade of the trees just beyond the open field in front of them. Even from this distance, Hezzie could see that there was something wrong with the man. His head was hanging down so low that his chin was almost touching his chest. As she watched, spasms wracked the man’s body. Small spasms that were nevertheless alarming.
It wasn’t just that. There was something terrifying in the way he was just standing there in the shadows staring at them and twitching.
She was barely aware of Noby’s fingers closing around her arm. Without saying a word, he tugged her along with him in the opposite direction, back towards where the house used to be. They kept on going, running when they could, until they reached the creek that fed into the pond. The water gurgled around the rocks but still Noby urged her at a pace so headlong that Hezzie stumbled on the slippery rocks beneath the water. Luckily she didn’t fall and they made it to the other side of the creek. Only then did Noby pause to look over his shoulder to make sure that they weren’t being chased.
The man was still in sight, but he was farther away now. Even from this distance they could hear the sounds he was making. They were feral, growling sounds. Terrifying sounds unlike anything they had ever heard before.
Noby grabbed her arm again and pulled her down with him. As they hunched down in the weeds, they continued to hear the inhuman snarls.
“Stay down,” Noby whispered tensely.
He grabbed the back of her shirt and pulled her down even lower with him. That’s when she saw what he was looking at. She watched in horror as the dripping wet woman rose up slowly from the pond. She had a huge gaping gash on the side of her pale neck, but no blood was visible. Even more horrifying than that, however, she was staring in their direction.
Without taking his eyes off the woman, Noby clamored to his feet, dragging Hezzie with him. The sounds the man was making grew louder. They were mingling now with the gurgling moans of the woman who was trying to climb up the slippery, muddy bank of the pond. She fell back. Water exploded around her, splashing high but she soon appeared again, looking ghoulish with her hair matted to her face and those terrible dead eyes.
Noby seemed uncertain, frozen there for several long moments that seemed like an eternity. Then he yelled a one-syllable order. “Run!”
Chapter 4
Gillie Leman’s job sucked. Really, seriously sucked. By anyone’s standards. If the pay was any good, he might consider sticking it out for a while longer, maybe a few days, maybe a few weeks, but even the pay was bad. About as bad as it could get. They didn’t even reimburse him for the gas he used, which in this economy cost an arm and a leg, not to mention the constant wear and tear on his vehicle. He had that to think about, too. Especially this vehicle which he was sure only continued moving down the road because of the prayers he said over it each and every time he got into it, prayed every strange new sound wasn’t a warning of a breakdown about to happen. Of course, it was just a matter of time before something did go wrong. The car was nearly twenty years old. Any kind of a breakdown would be a disaster, because without a car, he couldn’t get to a job. Without a job, he couldn’t make money to keep his car running, or afford repairs. Or gas.
To make matters worse, tips had been lousy today. That’s really the only thing that had made him stick with this job as long as he had. A whole two months while he looked for something better. He had bills to pay just like anyone else, and jobs, good jobs, were impossibly hard to find. A twenty-four cent tip didn’t cut it, which was the total tip for that last pizza he had delivered. On t
op of that, the half-naked, creepy cheapskate who had answered the door had acted like he was doing him a favor by letting him keep the twenty-four lousy cents, most of it in pennies. It was less than a quarter even. You might even say it was an insult. Considering. Considering he should be doing something a lot better. Hell, he had a college degree and here he was delivering pizzas for five dollars an hour. It wasn’t right, not in this world or any other one for that matter, but it seemed like there were hundreds of people applying for every opening. Hundreds of people who got the jobs while he was passed over for being overly qualified. At least he guessed that was the reason. He didn’t know how else to explain it. He had friends with graduate degrees who couldn’t get decent jobs, either. Most of them attributed it to the economy which had to be a lot worse than they were making it out to be. He probably got this job because no one else wanted do it. Not for five measly dollars an hour. And a twenty-four cent tip. You’d have to be an idiot to agree to that. Or desperate.
He passed Loeckler Park and the trees suddenly opened up. That’s when he got a good look at the horizon and the dark clouds just starting to rise over it. He muttered a low oath. That’s just what he needed. Deliveries in the pouring rain. People complaining if there were a few drops of water on their precious pizza boxes while he stood there soaking wet waiting for them to count out change. Or worse, when they were short and made him wait while they went back inside to get more money.
Could this day get any worse? Apparently it could. He stared as long as he dared at the whiff of smoke seeping from the heater vent. It wasn’t much smoke, just enough to let him know it was there, just enough to alarm him. He didn’t know what it meant. He just knew it couldn’t be good.
Calm down, he told himself. Calm down. He’d look up possible causes on U-Tube when he got home. If he got home. Oh, Lord. Where there’s smoke, there’s- Hell, why did that particular phrase have to pop into his head? He sniffed. Nothing. No smell of anything burning. Not yet at least. Just the smell of the pizzas. Of course the smell of the pizzas might mask-
