A small collection of miracles.
None of them a cigarette.
You can’t kill the worm.
Wound it, it’ll never be as bad as the hurt it does itself with every bite. It’ll just keep chewing. Digesting itself over and over again.
Calling the cops, sending them into Queens. Blowing it wide. Does that rip a hole in the side of the worm? Will blood run from it? Or does something like that make it stronger? More madness.
A sudden fun house mirror skew to the world. Everyone looking at the new reflection, asking, Do I really look like that? Your friends and neighbors, seeing them with those new eyes, Who are they? What are they?
How bad will it get?
How fast?
Figure it will get as bad as it can possibly get as fast as humanly possible.
Figure it this way. With or without Amanda’s research, once they have actual Vyrussy Vampyres in their labs, someone will come to the same conclusions that she did. So if our very existence doesn’t push the madding crowd over the edge, the idea of rewriting the history of life with sanguivores as the wellspring should be good for at least one holy war.
Then again, I’m maybe not the one you want sitting judgment on humanity. People being inclined as they are to see their own natures in everyone else. A world full of me? Who wouldn’t push the button?
The worm.
You can’t kill it.
It can only kill itself.
—I know about you.
I ignore that.
—As much as he talked about Percy, he talked about you almost as much.
I ignore it some more.
—He made you sound like the world’s baddest man. John Shaft with white skin.
In the front passenger seat, Lydia turns and looks at me when she hears that.
—Go ahead and smile, Joe, no one’s ever going to flatter you more than that.
Next to me in the back, Delilah shakes her head.
—Just said that was the picture my dad painted, I didn’t say it was accurate. Look at you. Look like you were something made to be beat on. It’s like nothing he ever told me was true. Like it’s just one big mess of craziness is all it is.
She shakes a fist at no one.
—I will not stand for more craziness.
I tug on the stump of my left ring finger.
—Girl, you got yourself into a world of craziness the minute you fucked a Vampyre, the rest of this is just what comes with the package.
Delilah slaps Ben’s shoulder and the Impala veers slightly.
—You have nothing to say to that?
Ben straightens the wheel and keeps his eyes on the road.
—Baby, I’m new to the whole experience myself. If I was comfortable with the way things are done, I wouldn’t have been looking for someone outside the infected community. To my eyes, it’s all been crazy. Being infected. Meeting you. Getting into the whole undead scene with you. ‘Cause you know I love you, and the role-playing is fun, kinky, but talking like that all the time, it wears me out a little. And now. Becoming a dad. Crazy is the least of it.
Delilah sniffs.
—If you don’t care to embrace your true self, you need not be burdened by myself or the child.
—Hon, that’s not what I.
She raises a hand.
—I’d prefer silence.
Lydia leans into her headrest.
—More craziness.
I rasp my whiskers with my fingernails.
—Price of admission.
• • •
There’s another price to be paid.
—You are so full of shit!
—Delilah, my dear, I was only trying to reassure myself that you were safe.
—Fuck that! I’m not talking about that! I’m talking about all your bullshit about these people!
Ben ducks the pointed finger as it swings his way.
—Baby, I’m not sure that’s the kind of language you mean to be using.
Her finger changes into a flat palm that she shoves an inch from Ben’s nose.
—Ben, baby daddy, shut the fuck up unless you want the remaining romance in this deal to go running down the drain.
Ben shuts up and takes a step back.
She turns to Chubby.
—Have you ever spent any time with these psychos? They. You made it sound like an adventure!
Chubby has his arms extended, showing his palms, fingers pointed down, supplicant.
—I was trying to entertain.
—I was a kid, for fuck sake!
—Entertain a very advanced child with very mature tastes.
—Don’t blame me for this shit.
—I am not. Your mother and I, our business. Of course your own interests were exotic. A bedtime reading of The Cat in the Hat was hardly in order.
She gives him the palm treatment.
—Just. OK. I don’t want to. Because I will just get.
She steps to him and shoves as hard as she can, failing to budge him an inch.
—We almost died! Over and over we almost died! And my baby, they would have killed my baby!
Her shoves turn to slaps, smacking his face side to side.
—You and your bullshit ideas of what being a dad is. Trying to show off. You and your secrets. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit!
Slaps turn to fists and Chubby has enough.
Grabs her by the wrists.
—Woman.
Ben steps to, draws a look from Chubby, and steps off.
Chubby pushes his face close to his daughter’s.
—You wanted adventure and romance. I obliged. You showed up with your young man and your predicament, and I gave you my best advice and counsel. Get rid of them both. Boy and baby. Because you are my daughter and I want what is best for you. But you are not a little girl, you are all grown up. Making your own decisions. That you judged reality by your bedtime stories bespeaks your own personal weaknesses. That you chose to indulge a predilection for dramatics, which is excessive to say the least, bespeaks your desire to dodge responsibilities. Now you have seen all this, what would you like me to do? What can I do to make up the past for you? Can I tell you a fresh fairy tale? One with a happy ending for you and Ben? From what I understand, that will not be coming true. We’ll need to hide you both, more than ever. You and your baby. You will be a mother soon. Time to stop worrying about the past. Time to worry about the future.
She twists free, stares at him.
—Hide my baby?
She shakes her head slow to the left.
—Never.
Slow to the right.
—This child is meant for the light.
Chubby’s hands flutter at his sides.
—Delilah, dear, I’m not suggesting you live in a cave.
—Yeah, you are. He looks at Lydia.
She’s leaning against the wall, next to the assault rifle she took from the Cure house.
—You’re telling them they have the love that dare not speak its name. And a baby that’s going to have to learn to pass. And that’s not the way it has to be.
Chubby slips a thumb in the armhole of his vest.
—This is a family matter, Miss Miles.
—Mizz Miles.
She comes away from the door.
—Throw those diminutives around, but don’t slap them on me.
Chubby looks at me.
—Joe?
I shake my head.
—No way, I’m not in this.
Lydia goes to Delilah.
—We can use you.
She puts a hand on Delilah’s belly.
—This baby, whatever it is, this baby says we’re all the same. It says infected and uninfected, we’re all human. It forces them to look at us and see people, not monsters. This baby, it’s not a symbol, it’s a fact. And it, and you, both of you together, if you come with me, you can save lives. Just by being there and letting people see you and see what you made together.
Chubby wipes a h
and down his face.
—Madness. Madness.
Lydia stays with Delilah’s eyes.
—It is not safe. It will not be safe. But it isn’t a safe world. All we can do is try and make it better.
Delilah’s eyes are wide and shiny.
She holds her hand open to Ben, he takes it, she pulls him close.
—This is a child of destiny in troubled times.
Chubby throws up his hands and walks away.
—Babbling, incoherent madness.
Delilah puts a hand on her belly.
—I will not hide this light.
She takes a step, pulling Ben along.
—Come, Benjamin, we are not welcome here.
Chubby takes a step after them.
—Delilah. Some small ounce of sense, please.
But she’s turned away, opening the office door.
—Lydia Miles, we will go with you. She will speak to the world, and our child will lead.
Ben glances back at us.
—I.
She pulls at his hand.
He lets himself be pulled.
—I’m a dad, man.
Both disappearing down the hall.
Delilah’s voice raised to declaim.
—We can shine a light. Our baby can be a light.
Chubby stands at the corner of his desk, moves toward the door, has another thought, turns back, stands lost in the middle of the room.
—Impetuous. That has always been her nature. Impetuous, passionate, romantic. Not a patient or a realistic bone in her body.
He looks at Lydia.
—And you encouraged her.
Lydia picks up the assault rifle.
—I just told her the right thing to do, she made up her own mind.
—Yes, a starring role as mother of the messiah baby, how could she resist?
Lydia waves him off.
—I’m guiding a revolution. You, Freeze, you’re trying to make yourself feel better about being a crappy dad.
He moves to a corner, stands there, looking at photos on the wall.
Lydia comes to where I’m slumped on the couch, she puts a hand under my chin and forces my head up and takes a good look into my eyes.
—For a girl. Joe Pitt blows up the world, for a girl.
She shakes her head.
—I wish I knew.
She lets go of my chin and straightens.
—I wish I knew.
She turns and walks away.
—I wish I knew where I could find a girl like that.
I watch her walk, favoring the side where the bullet’s stuck in her, carrying the assault rifle on her shoulder.
Tomorrow she’ll be on TV. Standing with her people around her. Delilah and Ben right up front. Trying to put a human face on what they’re pulling out of that hole in Queens.
And she’ll be lucky to live one more day past that.
I raise my good hand.
—Lydia.
She doesn’t look back at me.
—Save it.
—Just gonna say you can take the Impala.
—I already was.
And walks out the open door.
She does make it through the next couple days without dying or being thrown in a cage, she’ll go back underground. Fighting a new kind of fight. But I don’t need to tell her that.
After all, she kept the gun.
That lady, she wants to find a girl worth blowing up the world for, she should maybe look in the mirror.
—Do you think Delilah will come back?
I shrug.
—Beats me.
Chubby is still looking at those photos on the wall, a little girl.
—She’ll come back.
He looks at the floor.
—Of course she will. Once she sees. How hard it is. She’ll come back.
I push myself out of the corner of his couch.
—Don’t count on it.
He scuffs his foot against the lay of his shag carpet.
—No. I won’t. I won’t.
I start to gut myself up for standing.
—Anyway, all I need is for you to tell Evie I did my bit. I got the kids here safe. They didn’t want to stay. Too late for me to do more.
He scuffs again, drawing a cross in the carpet.
—Yes.
I lean and grab the side of his desk and pull and my bowels don’t fall out of my ass so I’m not dead yet.
—And I could use a ride over to Enclave.
He rubs the cross out.
—About that.
I’m lurching to the door.
—Don’t give me grief at this stage, Chubs. You don’t have to linger, just drive me over, push me out, and drive away.
—Joe.
I look at him.
He’s holding one hand to his cheek.
—I’m sorry, Joe.
I put my back against the wall, trying not to slide down it.
—Chubby?
—Very sorry.
—What did you?
He pulls his hand down his face, dragging the cheek, giving himself a cant.
—I never spoke with Evie.
I start to slide.
He pulls his cheek lower.
—She doesn’t know anything about Delilah and the baby. She never.
I’m on the floor.
Chubby looks like the side of his face that he’s touching has melted under his hand.
—She never said you should go looking for them.
He lets go of his face and it pulls itself back up.
—As far as I know, she doesn’t know that you’re alive.
I stay on the floor.
I could pull the piece I took from the Cure house armory and shoot Chubby, but I don’t much see the point of it. Said from the beginning that I owed him one. Just because I thought I had extra reason to go looking for his daughter, that doesn’t mean the debt wasn’t reason enough. Figure I may have thrown in the towel a few times if I hadn’t had that extra motivation, but that just doubles his smart for making the play he made.
I lift a hand.
—Doesn’t matter, Chubby.
I feel for a smoke, can’t find any, remember I never got my tobacco back from Ben.
Oh well.
Chubby comes over, takes my hand, pulls me up.
—If there’s something I can do, Joe. Money. I. Anything is what I mean.
He puts a finger alongside his neck.
—Joe, anything to make it right.
I push him off, stand on my own two.
—Hell, Chubby, when the night started I was living underground. I was feeding on dregs. I was hiding from the world and acting like I had an idea of what to do next. But all I really was was in the dark. Look at me now.
I brush at some filth on my tattered jacket.
—A night on the town. Visits with old pals. Rousing adventure.
I fit the zip and pull it up until it snags and stops at my sternum.
—I’m a changed man.
I drag my fingers through my hair.
—You want to do something for me. You can make a couple phone calls, bring some people up to date on the new state of things. And in the meantime.
I sweep a hand at the door.
—You can take me over to see my girl.
Last hour. Dark before the dawn. Empty city. A quiet waiting for the next big thing in the new day.
We drive through it.
—I didn’t think you would help.
I put my head out the open window to feel the cold air.
—When you’re right, Chubby, you’re right.
He leans from the backseat of the Riviera and taps Dallas’s shoulder.
—Up here.
Dallas changes lanes, takes the car around the corner onto Greenwich.
Chubby settles back into the seat.
—I don’t want to shirk my responsibility for the deception, but it was in fact Percy’s idea.
—Percy.
> He takes out his humidor, looks at it, removes the cap and pulls one of the cigars half from the humidor.
—As you must have gathered, I embellished a bit when I told Delilah those stories. From a very early age she’s had such macabre taste. Her mother had read to her the original Grimm’s tales. Heels chopped from feet, eyes pecked out, children sacrificed. I am myself no stranger to lurid material. Some of the most baroque scenarios my films have been based on were those I penned myself.
He pushes the cigar back into place.
—I even wrote one that was Vampyre-themed. But thought it better to leave it unproduced. There was no telling whose ire it might have raised.
He recaps the humidor.
—But I allowed my whimsy full freedom when I had occasion to tuck Delilah into bed. Thanks to the estrangement between her mother and myself, those were rare occurrences, and I hoped to leave an indelible impression. One that would outlast the charm of whichever of my ex’s current infatuations might be lurking about.
He waves the humidor.
—I told stories that were appropriately grotesque, but tended toward full and happy resolutions. Percy was a kind wizard who drifted in and out of my narratives, guiding a pair of star-crossed naifs. One of them Vampyre, one not.
He shoves the humidor into his jacket.
—A common-enough trope. Am I entirely responsible for putting the idea in her head? Please. Popular vampire fiction is rife with such relationships. It is a rampant cliché of the genre. What is Dracula if not the story of an undead’s hopeless love for a mortal?
He cuts the air with the edge of his hand.
—Can I be solely to blame that she took it quite so to heart?
The storefronts along Greenwich flick past the window. I stick a finger under my eyepatch and scratch the scar.
—You’re her dad.
He looks at me.
—What has that to do with it?
I bare my teeth as a cramp ripples through my belly, exhale as it passes.
—I don’t really know, Chub, but it seems daddies have a bit of an impact on their daughters. Or so I’ve heard. Could just be a rumor.
He rubs his forehead.
—Yes, yes, of course, yes. These things start early and run deep. Of course.
He wipes his mouth.
—But the past is prologue. And I was saying?
I cough on something in my throat. Maybe a loose piece of my throat, I can’t say.
My Dead Body Page 23
