The Devil's Alphabet

by Daryl Gregory

  Rainy said, “We were asleep.”

  “Maybe somebody came to the door. Did you hear anyone come in? Maybe in the morning—”

  “We were asleep,” Rainy said. She got up from her chair and began stacking the bowls.

  “Did you ever hear her argue with Tommy?” Pax asked.

  “Only all the time,” Sandra said quietly to her cereal.

  “Mom argued with lots of people,” Rainy said. “They weren’t as smart as her, and that got on her nerves sometimes.” She carried the bowls to the counter and started running water in the sink.

  Pax said, “What did she argue with them about?”

  “Everything,” Rainy said.

  Sandra nodded. “Pretty much.”

  “It’s hard to be smart,” Rainy said. “Lots of people want things to be the same as they always were, but they can’t. You can’t do things the old way, not after the Changes. Life is different than it used to be.” She sounded like she was quoting. “You have to take a stand. You have to follow your own moral compass.”

  “That’s true,” Pax said. “You have to do the right thing. Even if it’s hard.” He looked at Sandra and said, “If you’re scared of someone, if you’re afraid to speak, you can tell me, I can protect you.”

  Rainy turned around, looked at his face, his arms. “You?”

  ———

  The girls packed up their things about 1:00 p.m. and vanished into the woods, promising to return with more food. Pax set himself the goal of walking down the driveway to the mailbox. He hadn’t gone twenty yards before he’d broken into a sweat. He felt ancient, and something was wrong with one of his ribs; whenever he stepped a certain way pain shot up the right side of his chest, paralyzing him for a few seconds.

  He heard a car pull into the drive and he stepped off the driveway, readying himself to—what? Fight? Run? He could barely walk. Then he saw it was Deke’s Jeep, and he put a hand against a tree and waited, trying to catch his breath.

  Deke stopped the car and climbed out. He looked distraught. “Sweet Jesus on a stick,” he said.

  Pax smiled tightly.

  “I tried to call,” Deke said. “You don’t answer your phone.”

  “My cell phone’s dead. I forgot to pack a charger.”

  “I mean both phones.” Pax didn’t say anything, and Deke said, “Anything broken?”

  “My ribs hurt like hell.”

  “I’m so sorry, man.” He sounded genuinely remorseful. “You should go see Dr. Fraelich.”

  Pax snapped a wedge of bark from the tree, tossed it into the underbrush. “What are you doing here, Deke? If you’re trying to help me out you’re a little late. Wait, maybe you’re here to take my report? Track down the bad guys?”

  “I’m not a real cop, Paxton.”

  “Then what good are you?”

  “They said you tried to break into the Home. They were going to shoot you.”

  “Wait a minute—I’m supposed to be thankful?”

  Deke looked at the ground. “They had no right to do what they did,” he said slowly. “No right. But P.K., you can’t just …” He took a breath. “Listen, this thing you’re struggling with, this stuff from your father. I don’t know why it’s hitting you like this, but it must be pretty damn strong. But it’s just a drug, man. You just need to clear your system. If you need some money to—”

  “I don’t need your money.”

  “You have a chance, here, man. Right now.”

  “A chance for what?”

  “To get out of here. I’ll drive you back to Chicago myself. Right now.”

  “I’m not going anywhere without my father.”

  Deke sighed. “Listen, I know you think that sounds all noble—”

  “Saving my father sounds noble? Noble? Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “This isn’t you, Paxton.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Deke looked at him.

  “Yes,” Pax said. “Fuck. You.”

  Deke shook his head. Then he turned back to the Jeep. “Just call me, okay?”

  The girls returned to him for every meal, and some days they spent hours with him. They refused to talk about their mother’s death, or what enemies she might have made among the Co-op community; whenever he raised the topic, however obliquely, Rainy changed the subject, or Sandra discovered that he must need something, or else they simply announced that they had to leave.

  Pax and the twins lived off the food that had arrived Monday noon. A trio of charlie ladies, all women of the church that he’d known growing up, had appeared at his doorstep like a clutch of enormous hens. They carried enough food to host a small party: a tray of deli meats and cheeses, a bag of Kaiser rolls, macaroni salad, two three-liter bottles of Diet Coke, a family-sized bag of Doritos, glazed doughnuts, and a glistening slab of pineapple upside-down cake as heavy as a radiator. They bustled into the kitchen and started unpacking boxes and bags, somehow managing not to bump into each other, and without once suggesting that he needed this stuff or even wanted it. He tried to thank them, but they wouldn’t have it. Oh it’s nothing, they said, nothing at all, and even apologized for disturbing him, as if the pounds of food were the result of some shipping accident and they were just grateful he could take them off their hands. They didn’t mention his bruises or cuts, or even seem to see them. They didn’t ask about his father. The women enforced a no-fly zone of southern politeness: Every unpleasant thing was known, or if not known then assumed, and therefore beneath comment.

  They asked to say a short prayer before they left. Mrs. Jarpe, who’d been his piano teacher for three years before Paxton’s mother finally admitted that her son had no talent for the instrument, took his hand in hers and asked for the Lord’s strength, and for blessings on Paxton and the Reverend Martin. A-men, the ladies said, and then they were gone in a wash of perfume and hairspray.

  TDS had changed everything and nothing, he thought. The three women were bloated by the disease, but they were still southern ladies, still Christians with a tradition of offering food like a sacrament, the same women who’d loved him and watched out for him when he was a boy. Who were watching out for him even now. That request for strength had stung and warmed him at the same time.

  When he began to feel better he began to make the twins meals, though they didn’t like it. “We can be the moms,” Sandra said. But on Wednesday afternoon he set out three settings and served them all little sandwich triangles held together with toothpicks. The girls, judging from their voices if not their faces, seemed delighted.

  After supper Sandra said, “Tell us another story about Mom.”

  “About when she got pregnant with us,” Rainy said.

  Pax looked up, measuring Rainy’s gaze. “Girls,” he said. “I’m glad you’ve been coming here. You’ve helped me a lot. But I think you’ve gotten the wrong idea. Your mom and I …”

  They blinked at him. Did he want to do this? They weren’t his daughters—he knew that now—but he couldn’t help but think of them as his girls. Nieces, perhaps. But that was just fantasy. Playing house.

  Finally he said, “You know I’m not your father, right?”

  Sandra tilted her head, then looked at Rainy. Rainy said, “Betas don’t have fathers, Paxton.” Her voice patient.

  “I know that. I was just afraid that maybe you girls were thinking … I don’t know.” He breathed out, smiled. “I’m glad we understand each other.”

  “Now tell us about Mom,” Sandra said. “Was she happy when she found out she was pregnant?”

  “Of course she was,” Pax said. “She was … overjoyed.”

  “You can tell us the truth,” Rainy said.

  “She was scared, sure. No beta had had a child yet, so nobody knew what to expect. But she was excited.”

  “Really?” Sandra said.

  “She didn’t think we had ruined her life?” Rainy asked.

  “What? Of course not,” Pax said. “Listen, the first time I met you two, your mom p
ut my hand on her belly, and one of you kicked back—thump. She was so happy to feel you moving.”

  “I bet that was Rainy,” Sandra said. “She kicks in her sleep.”

  His walks in the afternoon grew longer. He went into the woods above the house, following the tracks he’d carved out with his ATV when he was a kid. Sometimes he’d burst into tears. Not from pain—though sometimes pain triggered it—but from a flash of memory, an image of fists or the sound of bone on flesh. Sudden fear would blindside him, leave him stumbling around bleary eyed and sobbing.

  He tried to summon alternate images, counter-spells. A crowbar slamming into Clete’s temple. Paxton’s Ford mashing at ninety miles per hour into the driver-side door of the pimped-out Camry Travis pleading for mercy; Aunt Rhonda on all fours, blood pouring from her mouth; the Home, burning …

  The fantasies were thin soup. He’d had his chance to fight back, and he’d lain there. Dreaming of revenge was pointless.

  He came out of the woods just as Aunt Rhonda’s Cadillac pulled into the drive. Everett and Clete escorted the mayor to the door. Pax put his hands in his pockets to stop them from trembling.

  “Oh, hon,” Aunt Rhonda said. She surveyed his face, frowning in concern.

  “It’s not any worse than it looks,” he said.

  “Clete has something to say to you,” Rhonda said. She turned to the boy.

  Pax looked at the chub’s face. His nose was the color and shape of an eggplant. Dark rings and swollen cheeks reduced his already small eyes to piggy slits.

  Pax looked at Rhonda and she said, “The Chief took issue with Clete’s behavior. As did I. Clete?”

  “I’m sorry for hitting you,” Clete said. He glanced at Aunt Rhonda. “Very sorry.”

  “What do you want?” Pax asked Rhonda.

  “I came to ask you a favor,” she said. His reaction must have showed in his face because she said reassuringly, “It’s nothing big. In fact, it’s kind of a favor to you.”

  Chapter 13

  HIS FATHER ROLLED out in a wheelchair the size of a loveseat. The boy pushing him was Clete’s sidekick, Travis. Everett trailed behind them with that bouncer-blank look on his face.

  Travis steered Harlan toward the atrium windows, where Pax sat in the middle of an upholstered guest chair, also chub-sized. His father was slumped in the wheelchair, head back and eyes closed. He looked deflated, a man swimming in a giant’s skin and clothes. Pax leaned forward, and Everett said, “Just keep your seat.”

  “I was just—never mind,” Pax said. Rhonda had explained the rules: no touching, no leaving the room, and do whatever Everett says. “Otherwise,” she’d told him, “just be yourself.”

  “Is he awake?” Pax asked.

  Everett touched Harlan’s shoulder. “Pastor Martin,” he said. “Your son’s here.”

  His father didn’t move. Everett said, “Playing possum.” He gently shook the man’s shoulder. “Come on now,” he said. “You’ve got company.”

  Harlan opened his eyes a fraction. “Get your hands off me,” he said in a cracked voice.

  “Ah,” Everett said. “Grumpy.” He nodded to Travis and they walked to a desk and chairs about ten feet away, where Barron, the security guard, had spread out a newspaper.

  Harlan turned his gaze to the windows, paying no attention to Paxton. The bright sunlight turned his father’s skin to rice paper. His arms were stained with liver spots. He seemed decades older than he had two weeks ago.

  “It’s me,” Pax said. “Your son.”

  His father didn’t move.

  Pax leaned back in his giant chair, scratched the side of his neck. The ache burned in him. Inside the Home, and this close to his father, Pax had expected to be engulfed by the scent of the vintage, and he hadn’t been sure how he was going to stand it. But there was only a trace of it, and even that was almost masked by the smell of Pine-Sol.

  “So,” Pax said. He tried to make his voice sound relaxed. “How are they treating you?”

  “Quit talking to me that way,” his father said.

  Pax glanced at the chub men across the room. They were pretending to study their sections of the paper. To his father, Pax said, “What way?”

  “I’m not senile.”

  But you’re not exactly sane, Pax thought. “Dad, I have to explain—”

  “I asked you one thing, Paxton.” Harlan turned his head to look at him, his eyes in that collapsed face bright and hard. “One thing.”

  “You didn’t exactly make it easy on me,” Pax said. He told him about the night at the church: the impromptu baptism, the way they had to drag both of them from the water. “You don’t remember any of this?”

  “You got what you wanted,” his father said. “So why are you here?”

  “This is not what I wanted!” Pax said. Everett looked over at them, and Pax lowered his voice. “I wanted you out of here. I wanted to take you home. I just … can’t.”

  His father made a noise of disgust and looked away. Outside the window, a plastic fawn nestled in the grass beside an antique iron water pump. Someone had planted a row of flowers, but at the moment they were headless stalks.

  Pax stared at his hands, then at his father.

  Harlan reached up, scratched at a cheek, and white flakes of skin fluttered in the sunlight. Dry, dry, dry. Nothing there for him. He was dying of thirst and his father had become a desert.

  After several minutes of silence, Pax got up and walked to the security desk. “This isn’t working,” Pax said quietly.

  Everett looked up at him. “You saying you’re backing out of the deal?”

  “No, I’m not backing out. It’s just not working right now.” He looked back at his father, still staring out the window. “Look,” he said to Everett. “Give me some now, just half, and tomorrow—”

  “One more word,” Everett said quietly. “Go ahead. Say one more word.”

  Barron and Travis froze, their eyes on Everett. Paxton closed his mouth.

  “Now then,” Everett said reasonably. “If you’re done for today, that’s fine. We’ll take you back now. But you don’t get paid unless he produces.”

  Pax turned away from the desk. He went back to the big chair opposite his father and sat, leaning over his knees.

  They didn’t speak. Pax studied his clasped hands, trying to get them to stop trembling. Jesus, he was a fucking wreck.

  “You’ve got bruises,” his father said.

  Pax didn’t reply.

  “Are they making you do this?”

  “No,” Pax said. “They’re not making me do anything.”

  His father nodded. Several minutes passed.

  “So,” Pax said. “How ’bout them Cubs?”

  His father didn’t answer. They spent the next two hours in silence.

  The vintage refused to return.

  Each night Pax decided that he wouldn’t go forward with the deal. His craving seemed as strong as ever, but it wasn’t getting worse. He could handle it. He’d go back to Chicago, get on with his life.

  Yet each morning at 8:45 he was waiting in front of the house for Everett to pick him up.

  The visits lasted until noon. Then Travis would wheel his father off to lunch, and either Everett or Barron would give him a ride back to the house.

  Because his father declined to talk, and because Rhonda thought TV would interfere with the process, Pax had to find some way to get through the hours. Each morning before he arrived he and Everett would stop by the Gas-n-Go, say hello to Mr. DuChamp, and pick up three papers: the Knoxville News-Sentinel, USA Today, and the Maryville Times. In the atrium Pax and his father would thumb through them, and usually Everett and Barron would join them. Travis sat well away from Pax and surreptitiously played games on his handheld.

  One morning in the second week of visits, Pax handed his father the Sentinel and his father said, “How’s Mr. DuChamp’s hair?”

  Pax looked up. “What? Oh. Fine.” He smiled. “Still looks as good as the day he bough
t it.” Twelve years after the Changes, Mr. DuChamp still wore a coal black toupee, never acknowledging that he’d become a beta.

  His father grunted. He was silent the rest of the morning. But the next day his father dropped the section of paper he was reading and Pax automatically stooped to pick it up. His father looked down at him, a half smile on his face, but he seemed to be seeing someone else.

  “Dad?” Pax asked. Then he smelled it. The vintage.

  He glanced toward the desk. Everett was on an errand with Aunt Rhonda, and Barron was out of the room. Travis was engrossed in his handheld.

  Pax touched his father’s hand. The skin seemed more moist than it had been. Quietly he said, “Dad, are you okay?”

  “You said you wanted red, right?” his father said. “Fire-engine red.” He didn’t seem to be talking to Pax.

  Travis still hadn’t noticed the change. Pax returned to his seat but his eyes were on his father’s face, his neck. He could see the skin of his cheek begin to swell, fast as a boxer’s after a vicious punch.

  “It’s me, Paxton,” he said.

  “You have to promise me to be careful,” his father said. “Don’t ride it on the road. And if your mother ever catches you without your helmet on, it’s going right back in the garage.”

  “I promise,” Pax said. His parents had given him the Yamaha ATV when he was thirteen, seven months before the Changes. It was the best Christmas of his life.

  The first blister formed just below his father’s right eye. Pax leaned forward, reached up to his father’s face.

  Someone slapped his hand away. Pax lunged forward and Everett shoved him back in his chair. Pax hadn’t heard him come back in the room. “Stay put,” Everett said. “Travis, go get an extraction pack.”

  The smell of the vintage blossomed to fill the room. Aunt Rhonda came out of her office holding a handkerchief over her nose and mouth. She put one hand on Paxton’s shoulder. “Good boy,” she said.

  Half the linen closet seemed to be flapping on lines strung across the front yard. The twins had been cleaning again.

  They were waiting for him in the house. They saw his face and one of them said, “Did something happen?” That was Rainy. She seemed years older than her sister, a young woman deigning to act childlike on occasion for the sake of the smaller children.