The doors at the custodian's back opened once more, and Fitch's breath caught.
The two figures behind the custodian were tall, thin, eyes hidden behind bug-eye sunglasses. One man in denim and plaid, and the woman in a neat blue power suit. The bastards had tracked him. Maybe from Rosenfeld's, maybe from his house...
Their hands hovered by their sides. Knives in their pockets, maybe. Or something worse.
No point in playing coy. Fitch cupped the chittering thing against his side and ran for the back door, sprinting past the belt sander and bandsaw, feet slipping in the thin skin of sawdust and metal shavings scattered across the floor. Behind him, the woman called out, "Fitch, baby! We missed you! Where you been hanging these days?"
Fitch slammed shoulder-first into the emergency doors. They bowed outward, creaked, and held. "God damn it!" He drove his heel into the lock. Wood splintered, but the door refused to open.
He glanced back. The custodian had stepped aside, allowing the man and woman past. They both had the same smile, Fitch realised. Like they'd shared a particularly distasteful joke.
"Clean house," the woman said, and before Fitch could shout a warning the man in plaid slammed his palm into the custodian's neck. The old man staggered. His eyes rolled back. Then he slumped to the floor, his cream pullover stained bright, arterial red.
Something snapped back inside the man's plaid shirt sleeve. A flash of white bone. He raised one hand to wipe the spattered blood from his sunglasses but only smeared it further.
The woman's smile grew wide. "Come on, Fitch. Don't you get tired of being so lonely? We could all be friends."
"Fuck you!" Fitch kicked the door again and this time the lock burst open, spilling him out into a locker-lined hallway. He ran with his heart in his mouth, careening off the battered steel lockers, the pack of pipe bombs bouncing against his spine. He'd never attended Rustwood High, but somehow he knew the corridors. Up ahead were the science labs and the principal's office, which looked out over the football field...
"Fitch, baby! Was it something I said?"
Fitch didn't look back, but as he passed the windows of the science labs he saw the woman reflected in the glass, her smile pointed, her sunglasses two huge black pits. She was reaching for him, fingers outstretched, the sleeve of her suit falling back from her wrist to reveal not flesh but bone, peeled of skin.
"She wants to chat!" the woman called. "She wants to give you a big old hug! We could do big things, Fitch. Don't make such a fuss!"
The door to the principal's office was unlocked, and Fitch slammed through, clambering over the desk, scattering papers beneath his feet as he flipped the window catch and climbed through on to the football field.
"Don't be so hasty, honey!" Something cold scraped along his shoulder. "We can work it out!"
He swatted the hand away and fell to the grass. Then he was up and running, wheezing, boots slick on the wet turf, his panic a hot ball of glue in his throat.
"Where you headed, Fitch?" The woman's voice was distant but still distinct, buzzing in Fitch's ears. "Pentacost Convent? That won't work! They're waiting for you!"
He climbed into his pickup and locked the doors. The engine caught first try.
"Fitch!"
The woman was framed in the window of the principal's office, morning light shining on her bug-eye sunglasses. Then Fitch blinked, and she was out on the football field, stalking across the touchdown line.
"You get tired, honey. We don't!"
He hit the gas and peeled out of the lot, swinging left on to Chancery, aiming for the Pentacost River. Rustwood High receded into the background and his heartbeat began to slow.
He glanced left out the window. His hands tensed on the wheel.
The woman was slouched against a streetlamp, arms crossed, rain splashing off her shoulders, her sunglasses perched high on her nose. As Fitch passed she nodded to him and licked her lips.
She mouthed the word, "Run."
* * *
Detective Goodwell sipped his coffee very daintily, as if to slurp would be to shatter the quiet in the Archer's living room. His brow furrowed as he stared into the mug. Then, finally, he smiled. "Great brew," he said. "And I thought I didn't like coffee."
Peter exhaled. "I was worried for a second."
"You thought I was going to arrest you for making a bad coffee?"
"I do a mean brew," Peter said. "Some think it's too strong. Kimberly certainly thinks so. Isn't that right, Kim?"
Kim didn't look up. She sat on the far end of the sofa, legs crossed, her own mug resting on the table before her. She watched the steam writhe and thought of mist twining around the pillars of the South Bulwark bridge, and black figures huddled around a fire, their flesh turned doughy by the rain.
"Kim, I said-"
"The coffee is fine, dear." It took effort to keep her voice even. Goodwell had arrived without warning that morning, popping by for what he called a 'community checkup.' Kimberly had never heard of a detective making house-calls, but she'd never heard of a bridge with no end either, so she didn't argue when he invited himself in.
The less fuss she made, the less Goodwell would be on her back. She had her own plans. She only needed a few more days. Maybe hours. She could fake a smile for that long.
Goodwell sipped again and licked his lips. "Damn good. So, everything's going well? No more... confusion?"
That last word made Kimberly wince. "None."
"None," Peter echoed. His smile was painted on. "We're perfectly fine. Like old times."
Goodwell raised one eyebrow.
"Good old times," Peter said again. "Isn't that right, dear?"
"Absolutely, dear."
"And the baby-"
"The baby's good too." Kimberly's face was beginning to hurt from faking the smile. "Look, Detective, I don't want to be rude, but we had plans for the weekend, and-"
"My boss is very concerned for your welfare," Goodwell said. "Very concerned indeed. And when the boss says jump, I start hopping. So forgive me if I'm getting in your way... Hold on." Goodwell cocked his head. "You hear... Damn it, I'll be right back." He set his coffee down and sprinted for the front door, and Kimberly watched through the front bay windows as he dove into his car and fumbled for the radio.
On the far end of the sofa, Peter Archer's smile dropped. "Thank God," he said. "That guy really likes the sound of his own voice."
Kimberly didn't reply. The steam was finally thinning. What could she have seen if the mists on the bridge had faded in the same way? Concrete and macadam stretching into infinity? Or the far shore, frozen as if in amber, never growing any closer as the gas needle ticked down, down, down-
"Kim?"
She snapped around. "What?"
"Jesus, just making conversation." Peter hunched over his coffee, knuckles white on the mug. "I know this isn't perfect but you could at least pretend to give a shit."
Kimberly didn't reply. She'd preferred Peter when she'd hated him, when he'd been a stranger she could keep at a distance. Now that she'd spent a week living in his house, avoiding his gaze, listening to him change and burp the baby, dealing with his confusion, she had to consider that maybe he was just as much a dupe as Goodwell. Sometimes she even pitied him.
Even so, she'd never thought a grown man could be so sullen. When she and Aaron fought they'd been competitions of pure volume, their arguments shaking the walls and rattling plates in the drying rack. Peter, on the other hand, just moped. He dragged his way around the house like he was ill, timing his visits to the bathroom so he and Kimberly never had to look into each other's eyes, tickling the baby's toes and making its formula in silence.
She was locked in a strange house with an infant and a whiny child in the body of a man. She had to get out. And as soon as Goodwell was gone, she could make her move.
The detective was coming back, running up the garden path, rain pearling on his brow. He ducked his head in the front door and called, "Mrs Archer? I'm sorry to leave,
but-"
Peter took the opportunity to jump up from the sofa and break the awkward silence. "Something's happened?"
"Incident at Rustwood High. Poor old..." Goodwell gnawed at his thumbnail. "Guess you'll read about it in the papers."
He nodded to Kimberly and Peter in turn, then retreated to his car. Peter didn't even wait until Goodwell was out of the drive to slam the door. "Too damn nosy," he growled. "Doesn't know when to leave his job at home, that's his problem. We're figuring this out. If he'd give us the space we'd be fine, just fine..."
But Kimberly was already dashing up the stairs, back to the bedroom. She eased the door closed, careful not to wake the baby, then shoved the dresser into position. Safe, finally.
The stairs creaked. Footsteps outside. A slow knock. Then the whisper: "I love you, Kimmy."
Kimberly sat on the bed, knees pulled to her chest, and waited for him to leave.
Only hours left, now. Then she'd be free.
Chapter 10
The rain drummed on Bo Tuscon's head. It filled his eyes and ears. He knew he was cold but he'd stopped shivering days before. The cold didn't eat into him like it used to. He had the strength to watch the little house on Rosewater Avenue as long as necessary.
The long walks had made him strong. He barely remembered what he did out there in the chill and the dark. He came home with scratches on his chest. Blood between his teeth.
He remembered... nests. Or was that only a dream? He'd been dreaming a lot lately. Remembering different times, when he was small enough to climb on to his mother's shoulders. Small enough to not mind how Father spent so long away.
He remembered a doorbell ringing one summer, so many years before. Tugging the curtains aside to see a stranger on the porch, a man in a grey suit, shirt unbuttoned, checking his watch.
Who is it, Bo?
Just a man!
What sort of man?
I don't know, he has a suit!
Mother's hand on his shoulder, pushing him aside. Oh! I didn't expect you so early. Come in, come... Bo, go to your room. No, he won't be any trouble. He won't make a sound.
Mother's hand pushing him down the hall. He'd peered through the crack in the door, watching the man in the grey suit remove his tie, his shoes. Then: Your kid's watching.
Oh God. Bo, honey, close the door. What've I told you? Just stay in your room and I'll bring you supper when it's ready.
He waited a moment too long,
Hey, kid! Close the fucking door!
His mother shoving him back, tugging the door closed, turning the lock. Not long, she whispered. Not long. I promise.
Hours spent waiting in the dark, listening, pressing his ear to the wall that separated his bedroom from his mother's. The relentless thudding. Squeals that could've been screams.
It was his fault, he was sure. If he'd just stayed in his room, the man wouldn't have hurt her. He'd messed up. He always messed up.
And now he waited again, alone.
He didn't mind the rain so much any more. It was comforting, a blanket drawn around his head. No matter that it blocked his vision. He could see in other ways. Something else guided him on those long, dark walks.
Only one walk left now. He didn't know how he knew but it was a concrete fact. One last walk with Jacinta.
She's in the basement! You killed her and she's in the fucking basement!
Jacinta, who had the brains to be a surgeon but for some reason decided to stay in Rustwood and swab down blister-patients as a grunt-level nurse. Jacinta, who only needed to raise one eyebrow to make Bo's heart skip.
This isn't you, Bo. You're sick. It's in your throat. Get it out!
Too many voices. They all buzzed and prattled and lied. They'd stop soon. Already fading. As soon as he found Jacinta, the true Jacinta, not one of the liars and imposters he'd run into on the streets, all the voices would go away. The fire in his throat would fade. The hunger would stop.
A silhouette moved behind the curtains. The man, he assumed. Jacinta had gone upstairs again. She stayed up there for hours. It'd been like that the day before, and the day before that. Bo knew because he watched almost every hour. He only left at night, making trips back to the rotten house, fiddling in the basement. He always came back. Watching the house on Rosewater was his job. The only job that mattered.
He blinked. The man was moving. He still didn't know whether he was Jacinta's lover, father, roommate... No matter. As soon as he had a chance to talk to her alone, she'd understand how important she was. How much Bo needed...
It's in your fucking head! Get it out!
Jacinta. God, it ached just to think of her. Where'd they first meet? After he'd left home. Twenty years old, putting distance between himself and his mother with nothing in his backpack but two hundred bucks, a box of poptarts and a bag of weed. A whole year spent on friend's sofas before he pulled his first job and started studying nursing. He filled the days with books instead of pills. He called home once a week and let Mother know he was eating well, saving well. He didn't sleep much, but none of the nursing students did. He was happy.
And then, one night at the Wayfarer Bar, while playing a game of pool, he'd slammed his beer down a little too hard and shattered the glass in his hand. The pain of his lacerated palm jerked him out of his alcohol haze, and he ran to the payphone to call an ambulance, cursing the irony of being a first year nursing student who was shaking too hard to stitch up his own hand.
And there she was. Jacinta rising up from her seat beside the bar, tutting over the gash, leading him outside to her car where she took a sterile needle and thread from the glove compartment. "You don't want this on your insurance," she said, cleaning and stitching the gash so smoothly that Bo barely felt the prick of the needle. "Too much trouble, I say."
He nodded, mute.
"Haven't seen you around. You studying here?"
He managed to whisper, "Yeah."
"Living on campus?"
"I guess."
"Expensive, isn't it? I would've stayed home if I'd known." She must've read something from the look in his eyes. "Not an option for you, I'm guessing. Bad times?"
Bo nodded, lips pressed tight together.
"I get it. Sometimes you just have to get away or you'll go mad, right?"
He couldn't tell her. Not the truth, not then, not ever. He hadn't left for his sake. He'd left for Mother.
He wasn't any good for her. He only ever got her hurt.
They'd talked through the night, and when she finally gave him a lift back to his dorm it ached to watch her drive away. It was so easy to forget things when she was close. Like his mother, and the door being closed in his face, and her muffled gasps that might well have been sobs.
God, had it been Jacinta? It was getting harder to recall her face. Sometimes it felt like those days belonged to someone else. A different, carefree Bo, who hadn't pulled night shifts at St Jeremiah's month after month, who hadn't worked his fingers raw tending to the blister patients. A Bo who still gave a shit.
And then, as the rain pealed down on his forehead and washed his eyes clean, the front door of one-one-eight Rosewater cracked open.
Bo's heart slammed against his ribs so hard he thought he'd faint. His fingers curled into tight fists, fingernails leaving little half-moon indentations in his palms. The hunger rose up, gnawing, churning.
It was her.
* * *
Kimberly's plan was simple.
The glove compartment map of Rustwood was burned into her memory. The tunnels, the ocean shore, the mountains rising up to border the town on three sides.
Tunnels could loop. Bridges could fall. But there was always an end to the mountains. She could see the peaks from the window of the stranger's bedroom, high in the distance, rising above the rooftops and TV aerials, a rugged line scrawled across grey sky.
She was already packing. A thick jacket to ward off the cold. Spare jeans and shirts folded into a plastic bag, double knotted. Three extra pairs of
socks. A pair of old boots stuffed in the bottom of the closet looked about her size - whoever Peter's real wife was, she knew her gear. Finally, a backpack stuffed at the back of the top shelf, gathering dust. Not a proper hiking pack, but it'd suffice.
When she was done, Kimberly pressed her ear to the bedroom door. The house was silent. Peter had fed and changed the baby an hour ago, and she'd listened as he'd walked a circuit around the house, singing and cooing and bouncing it on his shoulder. The stairs had creaked as he'd ascended to the nursery, and creaked again as he returned to his exile on the sofa. After that, nothing.
She'd have to move fast.
The dresser groaned as she shunted it away from the door, but her quick dance down the stairs was whisper quiet. Peter wasn't lying on the sofa, or hunched over in his study. The back yard, then. So long as she kept quiet...
The kitchen door shut behind her with a low click, and Kimberly set to raiding the pantry. She tried to remember the hikes her father had taken her on as a child. Ten miles a day through the Appalachians, through evergreens so thick you couldn't see the trail ahead, up the sides of shale mountains, trudging through snow and sun alike. They'd carried their water on their backs in half-gallon jugs, two per day per person, along with their blister-packs of iodine tablets. Jerky and mixed nuts for energy while walking, oats for breakfast. Dinner was whatever her father managed to shoot with the Ruger he had slung across his back.
She didn't have a gun, so she'd have to live off what she could carry. She filled empty bottles with tap water and stuffed them deep in the bag along with a four-pack of Gatorade. Atop them went bread and cheese and a container of leftover bolognaise mince, along with every muesli bar and rice cracker she could find in the cupboards.
The bag was almost too heavy to lift when she was done, but it was better to carry too much than too little. All she needed now were the car keys. They'd conveniently vanished from her jacket some time before Goodwell's visit, and the clinking in the living room suggested Peter had hidden them in a vase by the sofa. The way he moved them around worried her. What if he went crazy and locked her in the bedroom, feeding her through a slit cut in the door?
Rust: One Page 9
