“Because you made him that way.”
“I’m sorry. There’s nothing we can do about it.”
“Yes, there is. You finish off whatever that thing is and help me find my real husband. Maybe we can stop this from happening to anyone else.”
Lily stared at me, eased the door shut, aimed her gun at the body on the floor, and shot it in the head. Its fingers stopped twitching.
“I’ll help you find your real husband,” she said. “Let’s go.”
I tailed Lily to the stairwell—not the elevator—and followed her bobbing, black ponytail down four flights of steps back to that spotless reception area. The wind had blown the front doors half-open.
“No kidding,” Lily said. “You actually did take those chains off. Well, where to? Did you bring a car?”
“It’s at home. I walked here from the police station. Where are all the other vehicles?”
“Relocated to the rear lot for plowing. We like to keep the face of this place nice and shiny. Hence the reception area. You have a pilot’s license?”
“No. Why would I?”
“Just asking. We could have grabbed a plane from that landing strip they call an airport. I guess we’ll have to go on foot.”
“What about the fog?”
“What fog?”
“I don’t know. The sheriff said it was eating people.”
“Yep, everything is eating people, especially other people. We should head to the docks and find a boat.”
“I saw some kind of sea creature by the pier. It took out the concrete like it was nothing.”
“Okay, now you’re just making things up. I mean, I’ve watched some pretty strange stuff go down through these bulletproof windows, but this I have to see for myself.”
Lily threw the entrance doors wide and walked through them. I stood frozen in the lobby. I didn’t like the way she was talking so off-handedly about these things. And I really didn’t want to go back to the pier where that woman was hanging. Lily came back inside and grabbed my hand. She almost yanked my arm out of its socket.
“I have a gun,” she said. “Anything messes with us, pow! Right in the kisser. You ever watch that old Batman television show?”
“I read books. They were watching TV in the bed and breakfast and now they’re dead.”
“Well, that sucks. Come on.”
She tugged against my hand. I wanted to let go, but walking beside her through the parking lot stilled my wayward thoughts.
“Do you know how to drive a boat?” I said.
“Nope,” she said. “But I bet a scary sea monster will help me learn pretty quickly.”
I hoped she was right. About the boat, not the sea monster.
4
Boat
Snowflakes fell like feathers as I walked with Lily straight back to the concrete pier where I had first seen that woman hanging by her neck. That might be me, some day soon, if I couldn’t find my husband. Maybe that’s why the sheriff’s deputy showed up at our house: Rick had left town ahead of the incoming fog and taken the kids with him. But why would he forget his wife? Lily tucked her gun into her skirt’s waistband, climbed the snow-frosted ladder to the pier’s second level, and peered over the concrete edge. Out in the ice-blanketed bay, the water bubbled and frothed. Lily slid down the ladder and ran to me.
“I don’t know what that was,” she said, “but your stories are good enough for me. And that dead woman creeps me out. She kinda looks like you.”
“I know,” I said.
“I didn’t mean to say you would…”
“Just help me find my husband and children.”
Lily frowned at me.
“Let’s head down to the docks,” she said. “We should stay the hell away from the water between here and there so your octopus friend doesn’t follow us.”
“How do you propose we get there? Those shambling things are everywhere.”
“I bet the cold slows them down. Which way did you take to the Yamata building?”
“I followed the roads.”
“So we can do it again. Take my hand.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Why not? My mom held hands with her friends all the time when she was younger.”
“I’m not your mother or your friend. Let’s just go to the docks like you said. Maybe my husband already found a boat.”
“Your husband. Right. We’ll make a stop in the graveyard behind the church and scout the intersection overlooking the docks.”
Lily took off at a brisk power walk. I struggled to keep up with her.
“You think a graveyard is safe?” I called.
“There’s a layer of earth between the dead and us,” she said over her shoulder. “You should still keep your voice down. I found out the hard way how good their hearing is. That guy hanging out in front of the elevator? I did that so I’d have fair warning against some thing that was all legs skittering around through the air ducts. Good thing you decided not to crawl in through one of those.”
The church’s steeple looked down on the overturned cars in the street below with quiet dispassion. Lily took me up the embankment to our right, grabbing my arm when I slipped in fresh snow that her thick half-heels navigated effortlessly. We crouched against the church not far from the graveyard’s central monument, a dedicatory tower proclaiming the names of the town’s founders in large, white, angular letters. Beneath those runes, sitting with their heads bowed, were the deceased descendants of the town’s founders. When I coughed errant snowflakes into my sweater sleeve, the dead lifted their heads from silent prayers to their forefathers.
“Run,” Lily whispered.
She took off like an Olympic sprinter and hurdled the sidewalk’s waist-high fence. I had to stop, jump up onto my belly, and swing my legs over the wooden wall. Lily was already slipping and sliding halfway down the street when I landed. I took three steps and doubled over, clenching my left side where searing pain shot through it. Lily skidded to a stop, turned around, and took up a wide stance with her gun aimed in my direction. Rapid bursts of fire from her muzzle sent flashes of light arcing past my ears. Behind me, bodies struck the pavement. She dashed off down the street again, this time with my blue lace-ups right on her heels. We stumbled all the way down to the seaside frontage road and from there made our way to the docks. They appeared to be empty of both boats and people, living or dead.
“Sorry about the whole shooting at you thing,” Lily said. She wasn’t even panting. “Some of them were about to rip out that curly, red hair of yours. I think it looks fabulous as is, but you might want to wear it in an up-do so you don’t get grabbed.”
She took out her hair band and offered it to me. I stood bent over with my hands on my knees as my lungs heaved with frosty breaths.
“How do you run in pumps?” I said.
“The less you touch the ground, the easier it is,” she said. She snapped her barrette around her wrist. “I don’t see your friend out in the bay, but let’s not make the devil appear by speaking of him. I think our time would be better spent talking to those two men hunched over that tiny boat behind the trash barge. They appear to be reasonably alive.”
Lily’s heels remained on the ground, for the most part, as she traversed the docks’ wooden planks. She managed to stay quiet enough to draw her handgun on the two men in blue jumpsuits before the taller of them could lift his shotgun.
“Too slow,” Lily said. “But you don’t need that for me. Right?”
“I sure do hope so,” said the man. His voice was gravel. “Let’s lower our guns on the count of three. Sound good?”
“You have a head start on me, but I’m game.”
“Good enough. One. Two. Three.”
They pointed their guns at the wooden boards beneath our feet.
“Thanks for being a team player,” said the man. “I’m Ted. This is my son, William.”
“Hi,” said William.
“I’m Lily. This is Shannon. What’s with
the blue overalls?”
“I’m a flight mechanic,” said Ted. “Training my son here to do the same. Take your kid to work day. Hell of a hands-on experience to skip school for. We went to a whole lot of trouble to get this here motor fixed up only to find out there’s no gas around. That garbage barge over there uses diesel, and anyone with a brain took off in their car as soon as people started eating each other and spreading the plague.”
“Shannon, weren’t you at the police station?” said Lily. “They must have working cruisers there, right?”
“I drove there in one, but the deputy up on the roof said she’d shoot me if I came back.”
“God, you meet weird people. What about the gas station?”
“My boy and I were just talking about heading over there,” said Ted.
“Can we trust them with the boat?” said William.
“Nope,” said Ted, “but if they go there and get us one of those gas barrels they keep behind the fences, I’m sure we can come to an understanding.”
“I’m not fucking you,” said Lily.
“Whoa,” said Ted. He set his hands over his son’s ears. “Nothing like that. I meant to say this little boat has a maximum capacity of two. We’d need to make a couple of trips.”
“Oh, right,” said Lily. “You want to go, Shannon?”
“Ted,” I said, “do you know a man named Rick Hayes?”
“Never heard of him,” Ted said. “Your husband?”
“Shannon,” said Lily, “you need to stop with that.”
“I’m looking for my wife, too,” said Ted. “We get out of here, maybe we can look together.”
“All right,” I said. “I’m ready, Lily.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you are,” said Lily. “You got a gas can, Ted?”
“Nope,” said Ted. “Anyone who had one of those wouldn’t have left me a salvageable four-stroke motor. I do have a siphon, though. Just need a barrel.”
“Great,” said Lily. “I’m sure all these shambling freaks will be thrilled to hear a goddamn barrel rolling down the boardwalk. Come on, Shannon.”
I stayed close to Lily while she hewed to the buildings overlooking the bay. Some of the mailboxes we passed had their flags up. Nobody would be coming for them. I flipped them down.
“Why is it called a boardwalk if there aren’t any boards?” I said.
“Because tourists like the sound of it,” said Lily. “Those are the same people who sleep in a bed and breakfast and then go eat breakfast at a restaurant. Like this one. There’s even a waitress behind the counter. Probably not serving breakfast to anyone but herself. You know what’s on the menu?”
“What?”
“Anyone who sticks around long enough to be seen.”
Without warning, Lily sprinted across the street to the gas station and hid behind a pickup truck parked in front of a diesel island with the pump still in the gas tank. I hurried over and crouched down beside her. She held her gun up over her shoulder and peeked around the truck’s back end.
“Hell of a time to run out of gas,” she whispered. “Follow me.”
I shadowed Lily as she darted between gas pump islands. Behind the station’s convenience store, we found a tall, gated fence secured with a chain and padlock. The lock’s metal loop refused to submit to my gentle jiggling and Lily’s not-so-gentle profanity. A thick rod topped the fence an arm’s length above our heads.
“I’d rather not climb in these heels,” said Lily. “Want to play rock, paper, scissors to see who goes up and over?”
“I’ll go,” I said. “My son wins our games by adding a gun.”
“Fair enough. I’ll try to keep mine pointed away from you.”
My shoes had a heck of a time finding purchase in the fence’s frosty, diamond-shaped gaps. Lily helped me up and over the girding bar. I dropped down onto the brown, plastic lid of an industrial-sized trash dumpster home to an industrial-strength stench. Beside it lay black-handled bolt cutters on top of two rusted barrel drums marked GASOLINE.
“Be quick with those bolt cutters,” Lily said. “They can be pretty loud. You don’t want to—shit. That waitress is coming to take our order. Get those scrawny arms cutting. I’ll draw them away.”
“How are you going to do that?”
Lily was already gone. The chain and padlock on the gate were far too thick for me to snap in half. I severed the fence’s thin links in a rectangular pattern big enough to roll a barrel through. An explosive burst of gunfire sent the bolt cutters from my hands onto the tar.
“Hurry up, Shannon!”
I tipped over the lighter of the two barrels and rolled it through the hole in the fence even as the sloshing liquid inside the container worked against me. Lily’s rapid-fire gunshots burned vigor into my arms. With heaving grunts, I shoved the gritty metal past the hubbub at the gas station. Lily stood with her back to the store’s door, running her thumb against a lighter’s spark wheel as a mass of dead people approached her.
“Get your ass to the docks!” she said. “I’ll meet you there!”
I turned the barrel onto the frontage road and rolled it along the wet pavement in earnest. A quick burst of gunfire gave way to an explosion and shattering glass. My barrel was cruising too fast for me to turn around and look at what Lily had done. The noise she was making, however, had drawn a straggler from the docks far ahead of me: a shambling form wielding a hammer came running straight for me. Without warning, a withered hand seized my shoulder and held me in place, leaving my barrel to roll toward the docks on its own. A skinless woman’s blackened teeth hissed rotten eggs and methane into my face. With a roar, the hammer-wielding shambler shoved the butt of its weapon at my head and struck the dead woman’s forehead between her blood-ringed eyes. She latched on to Ted’s blue jumpsuit and sunk her teeth into his neck. He shoved her away with an anguished cry and caved in her skull with an overhand blow. His neck bled from six holes near his left shoulder. He covered the wounds with his shirt collar.
“Let’s catch that barrel before it goes overboard,” he said.
He raced me to the docks and won. When I caught up with him, he had slowed the rolling barrel and was easing it onto wooden boards that buckled under our weight.
“Get siphoning, William,” he said. “I’ll cover us.”
William hooked plastic tubes between the barrel and the boat’s deck. He started pumping a little handle with practiced rapidity. I turned to the boardwalk just in time to witness the gas station vomit a column of flame high into the sky. Lily sprinted away from it. When she reached me, she threw her arms around me to stop herself. This time, she was panting.
“I got most of them,” she said. “The fastest ones, anyways. The ones that aren’t dead are on fire.”
William hefted the barrel upright and removed the siphon.
“Full,” he said.
“Ladies first,” said Ted.
“You sure only two can fit?” said Lily.
“Put three in there and flip a coin to see whether you capsize,” said Ted.
“You go first, Shannon,” Lily said. “I’m out of ammunition, but Ted’s shotgun can cover us.”
I stared at the collar of Ted’s shirt. Black blood seeped through it, the same black stuff that came out of Rick when Lily shot him. Ted was going to die, wasn’t he?
“Ted,” I said, “you know what’s out there in that fog?”
Lily took a deep breath in through her nose and blew it out through her mouth.
“Your husband and children aren’t coming back, Shannon,” she said. “You need to let them go.”
“She’s right,” said Ted. “You two get in. William and I will cover you.”
“What the hell, Dad?” said William. “We don’t even know these people.”
“You can go with them,” said Ted. “You’re light enough.”
“Hell no,” said William. He stepped out of the boat. “You stay, I stay.”
Through his eyes, Jason gazed at me. Here was a son
who would join his father in the next life, one way or another. I should have stayed with my little boy and given him a mother’s comfort.
“You and your son go together and find peace,” I said to Ted. “I need to understand what killed my husband and children. I don’t think I could live with myself not knowing why I couldn’t help them.”
“You’ll only understand it when you’re dead,” said Lily.
“You’re a good wife and mother, Shannon,” said Ted. “When I find Cheryl, I’m going to tell her about you. Let her rip, son.”
William climbed into the boat and pulled a string attached to the motor. The engine whirred to life. Lily glanced back at the empty boardwalk, shoved her gun into her skirt, and crossed her arms. Ted sat down beside the boat’s bubbling motor. He stared at me with lifeless eyes and gunned the throttle. The little boat left a trail of jagged-edged ice floes in its wake as father and son disappeared into the misty horizon.
“I never figured you of all people to have a fucking death wish,” said Lily, “but I said I’d help you, so here I am.”
“That waitress friend of yours bit Ted’s neck,” I said. “I didn’t want his son to know.”
Lily’s frown softened. She tapped one shoe against the pavement and stared out into the mist over the bay.
“I guess we’ll just have to tell ourselves it was better that way.”
5
Fire Station
“You’re lucky I like you,” said Lily. Her tone was less than amiable. She clenched my wrist harder than she needed to as we ascended the road’s slight gradation. “You sure there aren’t any dead people behind us?”
I twisted my forearm from her grip and scoured the docks: nothing but wooden planks on metal stilts stood alongside a solitary, floating trash pile. If those shambling things did call to us, the foaming tide would swallow their plaintive cries.
“It’s just the sea monster,” I said. “The way you’re going takes us to the police station.”
“To hell with the sea monster,” said Lily. “I’ll talk to the police. You can hide behind me if you want.”
The Hanging Wives of New England Page 3
