by Libba Bray
“So you’re saying that Henri killed his wife….”
“And probably his dog,” I added.
“And Gerard came around to tell us that. Because he knew. Because he found her hand….”
“You saw the hand,” I said.
“I saw a hand. That was in Gerard’s bag.”
“Well, where do you think he got a hand?” I yelled. “They don’t sell them here. It’s not a kind of meat.”
“I don’t know where he got a hand! But he had a knife! And you said he attacked you!”
“I just told you I was lying!”
“Oh great!” she screamed. “That’s very helpful! Just be quiet a second. I need to think.”
The storm beat away at the shutters, clapping them against the side of the house, providing a horrible rhythm beneath our argument. The mumbles downstairs had stopped. Marylou sat on the edge of the bare mattress and put her head in her hands.
Then we heard the gunshot. And a thump. And nothing. So much adrenaline flooded my system, I felt like I could have broken down the door by running at it headfirst. Which is what I did. Run at it headfirst, I mean, while screaming Gerard’s name. Marylou grabbed me and held me back. She held hard too, clawing in with her nails and tossing me back on the bed.
“Charlie!” she screamed, getting in my face. “You are not going down there!”
“Did you hear that?” I yelled back. “He shot Gerard! I told you! Gerard was innocent! He was trying to help us!”
“I don’t know what’s going on, but we are staying in here!”
“Fine….” I said, backing off by crab-crawling backward on the bed. “Fine….”
She went back to the door to make sure it was secured. Now I knew what Gerard had been saying. There was no time to argue with Marylou. The only way I could get her out of danger was by knocking her out and dragging her out of here—because otherwise we would stay up here, and eventually Henri would come back up those steps with his gun. I looked around for something to hit her with. This was so much harder than you might think. The lamps looked like they would kill her; the hairbrush would just annoy her. It was like Goldilocks: too soft, too hard….
I finally saw a sleek DVD player much like the one downstairs (Henri really liked his DVDs). It was thin and looked light. While she was securing the door, I quietly pulled the cords loose from the wall and the back of the television with a rough tug. In protest the player spit out a disk. I pushed the drawer shut.
How would I do this? Gerard had said the jaw, but that didn’t make any sense. It had to be the back of the head.
I weighed the DVD player in my grip. One side felt hollow; the other seemed to contain all the parts. I turned it so the heavier side would be the one I would strike with. My hands were sweating. I wiped each one on my jeans. Marylou turned around.
“Charlie, what are you—”
I hit her across the face—a solid clunk against bone that reverberated through the DVD player. She staggered and screamed but didn’t fall. I’d bloodied her—I’m not sure from where. Probably the nose.
“Sorry,” I gasped.
I hit her again. On the back of the head as I’d originally intended. She lurched forward to tackle me, and I swung out one more time, baseball-bat style, swinging far back and bringing the player right under her chin with all my might. She dropped to the floor, a thin stream of blood flowing from her nose, cutting across her cheek in a thin stripe. I quickly checked to make sure she was still breathing, then I rolled her under the bed to hide her.
“Sorry,” I said again, pushing her as far as I could. I opened a drawer and pulled out some clothes, scattering them around the space to hide her as much as I could. This was bad camouflage, but I was making this up as I went and I defy you to do better if this ever happens to you.
I stayed on my hands and knees for a moment, catching my breath. There was no noise from downstairs. That seemed bad. But there was also no noise on the steps or outside the door.
Marylou had brought her bag with her. I slipped the pipe from it, as well as the knife. I held one in each hand, trying to figure out which one was best for the immediate job. The pipe, probably. I crept to the door and undid the lock. I stood for a moment, pipe ready, in case the knob turned and the door opened.
Nothing. Nothing but my heartbeat. Nothing but my own blood pumping so hard my arms shook.
I reached for the knob, holding it tight, then threw the door open. I did that move from police shows to get to the steps—the one where you jump into doorways ready to swing.
I heard a faint shuffle from downstairs. From the kitchen. Henri was still down there.
I tightened my grip on the pipe and took the steps as gingerly as I could, willing my body to weigh nothing, not to inflict any pressure on the old wood. The shuffling continued in the kitchen, and I tried to move in time with it. Then I was at the kitchen doorway, the smell of onions burning my nose. It smelled like Henri had taken the time to actually put them on the stove. I could hear them sizzling. But no other movement. I readied myself.
And then a hand shot out and grabbed my wrist, making me drop the pipe. I screamed.
“Is okay!” Gerard said.
He was untied, standing there, alone.
“What?” I said, gasping. “What…”
And then I saw.
Henri was lying on the floor on his back. His head…well, what was left of his head…a lot of it was missing…. I didn’t take a good look. He was dead. There was a massive splatter all over that corner of the room, and the blood ran all around him, funneled through the grooves in the wooden floor. The shotgun was on the table.
“What happened?” I said. I felt hot and faint, and I had to grab the doorway for support.
“He untied me,” Gerard said, sounding shocked. “He let me go. And then he shot ’imself. Where is your sister?”
“I knocked her out with a DVD player,” I said.
He nodded absently. I stepped around him and had a better look at Henri. He was definitely dead. There was so much blood.
“I think he saw the hand and remembered what he did,” Gerard said quietly. “Eet has happened just like the notes said, just like my cousin. Henri has killed himself, and now eet will move.”
“Oh,” I replied.
The onions popped in the pan. I pulled them off the burner. I couldn’t figure out how to turn it off. Gerard came over and lowered one of the heavy covers over it.
“You believe now,” he said quietly. “I did not want to either, but once you have seen eet, you know eet is true.”
Henri’s dead body was on the floor, half a head missing. What had seemed so impossible now seemed utterly plausible. The curse was here.
“Yes,” I said. “I believe it now.”
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“Fine. I mean, I just beat Marylou over the head. But I didn’t kill her. That’s good, right? I was careful about that.”
This news cheered him. His face perked up a bit.
“That is good, Charlie! That is very good!”
I remembered how Marylou had grabbed the knife and the pipe earlier, how she had fought me just now…how all of her instincts had been so murderous.
“It’s her,” I said. “She’s got it. I’m sure of it. She’s been acting strange.”
Gerard watched me carefully for a moment, examining me for any signs that I might break into a murderous rampage. He looked at Marylou’s pipe, which was now on the bench next to the table. Then he smiled, pure relief flooding his features.
“Yes,” he said. “Eef you did not kill her when you could, eef she is acting odd…yes. I believe you are right. Eet is your sister. We will lock her up then we will all be safe. We will all be safe, Charlie!”
With that he pulled me close. I don’t know what it was—maybe the mad excitement—but he kissed me. I mean a passionate, full-on, total-body-contact kiss in the true French fashion, done only as a tall village boy who was massively glad to be al
ive could kiss.
Which, if you are interested, is pretty good stuff. I was pretty glad to be alive myself, and the moment just swelled in that blood-splattered, onion-reeking kitchen with the rain driving away outside. Gerard paused to laugh, his lips close to mine, then picked me up giddily. I wrapped my legs around his hips for support, and we kissed again.
Neither of us heard Marylou come in, or noticed her quietly pick up the rifle.
“What have you done?” she said.
She really didn’t look good. The blood had smeared on her face, and there were shadowy bruises all along her jaw and cheek. Her eyes were red and teary, and her teeth were set together.
And we were, you know, making out over a dead body with half a head, so I could see how this was going to be a tricky one.
Gerard lowered me slowly, and I tried to smile. A calm, it’s-all-okay-now smile.
“You don’t understand….” I said.
“That is the biggest understatement of all time.”
Marylou backed up to the doorway and swung the gun between the two of us.
“You killed him,” she said to Gerard.
“No,” I said quickly. “He killed himself. Because he killed his wife. Just like I said.”
“You mean before you beat me over the head?”
She started to laugh—a high, very crazy laugh that could have been an audio sample that played when you opened the DSM-IV, like one of those chips in a musical greeting card. It was a fair point. I had a good reason for beating her over the head, of course, but I thought maybe Marylou needed a moment before I launched into my explanation. She needed to own her anger, as she herself would have said if she hadn’t been going bat-shit crazy and waving a gun at us.
“Do you even know how to use that?” Gerard asked calmly.
“Oh, I think I could figure it out,” she said, spitting out a few tears as she spoke.
The tip of the rifle began to shake up and down a little.
“Marylou,” I said, trying to keep myself under control, “put the gun down. Gerard isn’t going to hurt us. He was defending us.”
“You,” she said, trying to bring her voice under control. “Sit. Both of you. Sit.”
Gerard slowly lowered himself back into the chair where he’d been bound, and I sat near the television. Marylou kept the rifle high, pointed at Gerard. Large sweat marks had appeared under his arms and on his chest. We were all sweating. It was stupidly humid.
“The Law of Suspects,” he said in a low voice. “My god. This is how eet happens.”
“Shut up,” Marylou said. “You shot him.”
“And now you,” Gerard said. “Eet’s taken you. Do not hurt your sister. You must fight eet.”
“I said shut up!”
She stepped right up to him and stuck the gun in his face. For the second time that night Gerard squarely faced death. This time he seemed calm. Maybe he was just getting used to it.
He stood, placing himself so that the barrel was pointed right at his heart.
“Shoot me,” he said, “not your sister. Let eet end here. Shoot me. Shoot me, Marylou.”
Gerard…this boy I’d only known for a few massively confusing hours, who’d tried to save me more than once…was now putting his life out for mine. Marylou had stopped shaking, and there were no more tears.
“Do eet,” he said simply. “Because eef you don’t, I’m going to take that gun from you.”
“No,” I yelled. “Gerard, don’t. Marylou, don’t!”
Marylou was trembling violently.
“I can do it to protect my sister and myself….”
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
“You son of a bitch! You killed—”
And then we both did something that will never completely make sense to me. I jumped from my chair and shoved Gerard out of the way. We fell to the floor together, me clocking my head on the edge of the table in the process. We landed on Henri’s legs (and his blood and something squishy I’d prefer not to discuss). Marylou swung and reached for the trigger. I heard a click, click, click, and I was thinking, This is the end. It ends with clicks. Click, click, click, like all the switches being turned off, all the lights going off on life.
But the click, click, click was her trying to undo the safety, which Gerard must have put on. This delay gave Gerard enough time to get to his feet and punch my poor sister in the face. One blow, right to the jaw, and she went down for the second time in about fifteen minutes.
“Oh god,” I said, rushing over to check her. “Oh god. God, she’s going to be so swollen….”
Gerard wasted no time. He took the ropes that had bound him before and tied her tight.
“Open the door,” he said as he worked.
I backed up toward the front door, but he said, “Non, non, non…the cellar door. Here.”
There was a thick, rough cellar door just on the other side of the stove. I had to jump over Henri’s body and the running streams of blood to get to it. It had a plank of wood over it to bar it closed. I lifted this off.
“What are we doing?” I asked.
“Your sister is infected. The best thing we can do for her is make sure she is locked up until morning. Quickly, before she wakes.”
There was no light switch, so I had to jump over Henri’s body again to get the flashlight from the counter, where it had miraculously missed being splattered. And jump again to get back to the door. That was three jumps over his corpse. That seemed bad. So many aspects of this seemed bad, but it’s amazing how quickly you can get used to a whole new set of circumstances.
The cellar was a raw old place, very small, with walls made of stones cemented together. It smelled like earth and was absolutely freezing cold. It looked like Henri mostly used it to develop film. There was a table of trays, shelves of chemicals, a clothesline of drying prints—most of them of trees and the mountains. There were also a few sacks of potatoes and onions, some bottles of wine, some homemade preserves on a different shelf, along with a few rounds of cheese in plastic containers. There were some shovels and garden implements in the corner. Henri’s life had been so pleasant, so normal until recently.
“Let me find some blankets,” I said. “And a coat.”
“Be quick,” he said.
I found an afghan on the sofa, a jacket in the hall, and took the rain slicker. I used them all to make a kind of nest for my unconscious, bound sister and helped Gerard carry her down the stairs. I tuck her in as carefully as I could as he lashed her to one of the supporting beams. I left the flashlight there, pointed up, to give her some light. Then we trudged back up the steps and shut the door, putting the beam across it.
“Is this really necessary?” I asked.
“Is what necessary?” Gerard asked. He had picked the gun back up and was examining it.
“Locking her in the basement. Can’t we just keep her up here?”
“Eet is better to keep her there. She is dangerous now. In the morning we will release her.”
It made sense. Kind of. As much sense as anything could make. I looked down at poor Henri, his crumpled body on the floor.
“What do we do now?” I asked.
Gerard looked up at me and smiled.
Okay. So we made out on the couch for an hour. I don’t think it’s fair for anyone to be judging me. Yes, I know. Dead guy. Sister tied up in basement. I know, I know. But there was nothing else to do except watch Mission: Impossible in French. They say that stressful situations bring people together. It’s true. No, it’s really true. I’m sure there’s something in the DSM-IV about it.
So yes. Couch, dark living room, rain outside, French countryside…the rest of the picture sounds right, doesn’t it? We had just paused because our lips had gone a little numb when we heard Marylou screaming in the basement.
“She is awake,” Gerard said calmly, stroking my hair.
I buried my head into his chest and put my hands over my ears, but nothing drowned it out. She was screaming my name
over and over.
“Can’t we let her out?” I asked. “We have the gun. We can tie her up in the kitchen where it’s warm. She’s going to need water and food….”
“She will be fine,” he said. There was a firmness to his voice I didn’t like.
“She can’t hurt us,” I said, sitting up. “There are two of us. I’m not saying that we let her run around, but…”
“You have no idea what she can do.”
In the dark all I could see was the outline of his hair, his bright eyes. His hand was on my leg. I felt his fingers tighten and tense.
“The infection,” he said, “you do not understand. You do not know what eet does. You have no idea. I have seen what eet does. That is not your sister right now, Charlie. She was gone by the time you got to the part about the guillotine.”
“The part about what?”
“The part about the guillotine.”
I went back through my mind, back to the moment where I was standing there with Henri and he was talking and talking and I asked to use his bathroom…. He had never said anything about a guillotine. I’d cut him off. I never got the whole story.
Which meant that possibly…possibly I had never been infected. I had never passed it on to Marylou.
But Gerard seemed to know a lot about this Law of Suspects thing.
And he was sounding calmer and calmer, the tone stripped from his voice, just like it had been from Henri’s. But Gerard would never let himself listen to the story….
Gerard had been tied up in a chair, alone with Henri. Helpless.
His fingers flexed again. He was staring at me in the dark, his expression unmoving.
“Right,” I said, trying to sound cool. “That part. That was the freakiest part.”
I couldn’t take Gerard, not physically. All I had was the gun, and I was not going to shoot him. We hadn’t known each other long, but I liked him. He was a good person. He had almost gotten himself killed trying to protect me.
“I was thinking,” I said. “The car. We should really check the car. I’ll bet there’s enough gas. Henri was probably lying about that.”
“Where is there to go?”
“To town!” I said.
