The Devil's Alphabet

by Daryl Gregory

  Deke could see over the top of the truck now. On the other side, twenty yards away, a dozen men were assembling a barrier made of plastic pylons connected to each other by metal pipes. One of the pylons was being filled with water from a hose running out the side of the truck. He’d never seen that before.

  One of the soldiers noticed Deke and said something. The other men looked up, and froze. None of them were holding rifles. Then one of them reached for the sidearm on his hip. The rest of the men ran toward the truck. Toward their guns.

  “Donna,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  “I’m not going anywhere except Knoxville, right now.” She stepped toward the nearest soldier. “We’re going down this damn road, or I will know the reason why!”

  “Donna—” He stepped in front of her to turn her around and he felt something bite him in the shoulder. He wheeled toward the soldiers, thinking—nonsensically—that one of them had thrown a rock at him. One of the soldiers yelled. Before Deke could say anything he was struck twice more, in the chest and in the arm. Only then did he take in the sound of the gunshots.

  Donna roared—an almost subsonic shout that concussed the air like a bomb—then bent and leaped forward. She slammed into one of the soldiers and sent him cartwheeling away.

  Automatic gunfire erupted—seemingly from everywhere. Donna planted one hand on the ground and spun toward another soldier. She seized both his rifle and an arm in one huge fist and yanked. The man’s arm popped from his torso. She tossed it away like a doll part and the man collapsed to the pavement.

  Deke lost his balance and fell back on his butt. He looked down at his chest. Blood soaked his shirt.

  No one understands what it’s like, Deke thought. All the little people thought that being an argo made life easy. Of course you get your way, look how big you are! Of course people respect you, you can break them in half! They didn’t understand how much discipline such a body required, how much restraint. His old human faults were still bubbling in his brain, riding his bloodstream. The Changes hadn’t erased fear and rage—Deke’s daddy had worked too hard pounding those into him for them to go away. Sometimes the urge to strike back, to kill, came on so fast it took everything he had to hold himself in check. Sometimes he didn’t have enough.

  But it wasn’t just Deke—it was true for everyone in his clade. It was the secret they kept among themselves. Each of them knew that idiot strength waited like a boulder at the top of a steep hill. Every day, each of them had to decide not to nudge that rock.

  Maybe the next generation of argos would be different. More peaceful souls. He hoped so.

  He called Donna’s name, but she was beyond thinking now, moving fast. Another soldier collapsed under her fists. Those stupid, sexist bastards—they’d shot him first, even though it was Donna who was the larger of the two, the stronger, the more dangerous. They didn’t understand. She was a full-grown argo woman. And they had hurt her man.

  More soldiers appeared around each end of the truck, and some under the truck, aiming their rifles up at them. Donna leaped to the nearest man. He screamed in fear, and the rifles burst into new applause.

  God she was fierce, and so beautiful. But there were so many soldiers, and their weapons could shred metal. They would kill her. He pushed himself to all fours, grimacing. He hoped that she was wrong, that there really were such things as souls.

  Then he heard her bellow in pain. A great weight inside him trembled, shifted, and suddenly tumbled down.

  He ran to her side.

  Chapter 19

  FOR THE FIRST hour and a half of the service Paxton felt as if he were floating above the congregation: apart from the proceedings, immune, unmoved.

  Reverend Hooke, dressed in a billowing dark dress that made her look strangely bulky, had started the service with a long prayer that expanded in a widening circle to take in all nouns. She prayed not only for Deke and Donna, but this church, this town, all the people of Switchcreek; she asked God to embrace the soldiers who surrounded them, the people in the nearby towns who feared them, and their fellow Americans across the country. She prayed for the victims in Ecuador and for people the world over who watched the suffering on their television screens.

  She had no other sermon. There was no program, she said, no plan; the spirit would lead. Then she opened the pulpit to anyone who wanted to speak.

  The first to come forward was an argo woman. She stood at the podium, between two huge caskets of dark gleaming wood. Like all argo necessities, they were custom creations. They’d been fashioned by Deke’s employees in the same shop where they’d created the argo-sized pews that this morning had been carried in to fill the front of the sanctuary. For once, the argos were not going to sit in the back.

  Paxton found it hard to focus on what the argo woman was saying, or on what was said by the others who came after her. Most were argos, but people from other clades also felt called to say something. Sometimes they spoke only about Deke, sometimes only about Donna, but usually it was about the two of them as a couple, a partnership.

  Donna’s beta cousin, the one who’d given birth only a few months ago, talked about Deke and Donna’s dream of having children. By now everyone knew where they’d been heading when they met the roadblock. The people in the pews around Pax, even the stone-faced betas, sobbed or wept silently, heads held still as tears ran down cheeks and into their collars. Pax sat impassively, wondering at the intensity of the emotion and at his own detachment. He should have tasted a little vintage before the service. He felt as if he were sitting in the middle of a burning house, breathing smoke like it was fresh air, unable to feel the heat.

  His father would have been crying by now, Paxton was sure. Harlan had been stunned by the news of Deke’s and Donna’s deaths; during Paxton’s visits this morning and the day before he’d been incapable of saying more than a few words. Yet he wouldn’t come to the service. Aunt Rhonda said she would have allowed it, that her employees could have transported him, wheeled him inside, and guarded him, but Harlan refused. Pax knew that he was intensely embarrassed by his size and must have been petrified that he’d humiliate himself if the vintage struck during the service. The fact that the funeral would be held in his own church only made it more unbearable. “You go,” his father had told him, and it had been not so much a command as a plea.

  The stories and testimonials went on and on. The church was packed as full as he’d ever seen it, and the doors were propped open so that the scores of people standing outside could hear. There were no reporters inside or out, no nonresidents at all—those had been bussed to an alternate quarantine site near Louisville, Kentucky. Already some of those reporters had been examined and declared clear of TDS-causing plasmids—whatever those were. Neither were there soldiers; they’d pulled back to their improvised headquarters at the Cherokee Hotel and to the newly reopened and fortified checkpoints. No one except the National Guardsmen had entered the town in three days.

  Pax knew that he should stand up and speak for his friend. Who else here could tell about the boy he’d been before the Changes, before he’d become the Chief? The baseball fanatic who so loved a good game that he’d once broken a finger in the third inning and didn’t tell anyone until the next day. The shy daredevil who’d invented Hillbilly Bobsled. The artist who’d built a dozen birdhouses just because his crazy-ass father mentioned—once—that he liked to watch the blue jays squabble. Nobody who knew only the Chief would believe how scared Deke had been of his old man.

  Reverend Hooke stood in silence, waiting for anyone else to step forward.

  Pax gripped the pew in front of him and stared at his hand. He could pull himself up, walk to the front. But his hand would not unclench, and seemed to become something alien, a knuckled stump that did not belong to him. A foreign object attached to someone else’s arm. His body felt heavy as river stone.

  And then the reverend nodded to a back row, and the moment passed. His hand fell into his lap.

  Aunt Rhonda
came slowly forward, an immensity in pink like a parade float: pale pink dress and jacket, a wide pink hat with a brim ringed with white flowers, pink eye shadow and lipstick. Her lilac perfume followed like a bridal train.

  Rhonda stepped up on a hidden riser and regarded them over the podium. Her mouth was pursed, and her mascara had smeared darkening her eyes. It was the first evidence Pax had ever seen that the woman could cry.

  He could no more concentrate on the words of her eulogy than he could anyone else’s, but he took note that her voice often trembled and at times broke, and that what appeared to be actual moisture made her eyes gleam. Performance or true passion? He couldn’t decide. Maybe a smart person could tell the difference. The people around him certainly seemed to be moved. Their tears flowed; they leaned toward her, rapt.

  “They call us freaks,” Rhonda said. “They call us mistakes. They call us unnatural. But everyone in this room was blessed to know two giants. I’m not talking about their size. I’m talking about their spirit, their goodness, their courage. And what was their reward? The world cut them down, cut them down like the Old Soldier. That is the unnatural act. And that is the great mistake our captors have made.

  “They thought they could contain them,” Rhonda said. “But Deke and Donna cannot be contained. We cannot be contained. We shall not be contained.”

  Someone shouted an amen. Around Paxton people began to stand; the entire congregation was getting to its feet. Paxton rose with them, but he kept his head down and gripped the pew in front of him. People murmured and shouted. He’d never suspected that Rhonda could deliver a fire-and-brimstone sermon. But of course she’d been watching his father all those years.

  At some signal he didn’t see, the argos in the front rows turned to face the congregation.

  Pax recognized Amos, the one-armed man who worked in Deke’s shop, and a few others he’d either known before the Changes or had seen around town over the past few months. Most were strangers, gray-and white-skinned giants, some dressed in good suits, others in overalls and short-sleeved shirts and long cotton dresses.

  And then they began to sing.

  The first blast of sound rocked him back. The pew vibrated under his hands, traveled into his chest, buzzed the bones of his jaw.

  He’d never heard so many argos sing at once, and never on their own; he’d only heard them in mixed choirs, taking the bass line in songs with the other clades. But this, this was something new, purely argo. New music that required previously unimagined vocal parts: Sub Bass, Deep Bass, Nether Bass, Double Mineshaft. He knew there must be more registers below his hearing, sub-foghorn frequencies that propagated miles through the Earth’s crust: Tectonic Bass.

  The song went on for five minutes, ten, fifteen. The throb and thrum hammered him back into his body; he gripped the pew as waves of sound beat against his face and chest and thighs, chorus after chorus after chorus. He didn’t know what song the choir sang, but he sang with them, head back and mouth wide. He sang and he waited for the tears to come. He waited, teetering on the edge of that release, rocking in the embrace of that deep sound.

  But no. He was dry. Dry as ancient skin, and the singing beat him like a hollow drum.

  ———

  On the fourth day of the quarantine, soldiers brought him coupons.

  Six masked national guardsmen knocked hard on his door at eight in the morning. Paxton came out in the T-shirt and shorts he’d been sleeping in. He couldn’t tell how old the men were, or if they were frightened to be knocking on doors that could be answered by testosterone-crazed sumo wrestlers or twelve-foot trolls or hairless women who didn’t need men to breed.

  “Trick or treat,” Pax said. It was only ten days to Halloween.

  If they were relieved that Paxton looked normal their masks hid it. A man at the front of the group held out his hand. “How do you do,” he said, his voice muffled. “I’m Colonel Duveen.”

  Pax had heard of him. The Maximum Leader. Chief Jailer. “Are you sure you want to touch me?”

  The man didn’t drop his arm. Finally Pax shook his hand. His gloved hand.

  The other soldiers were spread out along the front lawn, and one of them faced the driveway. They held their rifles a little too at-the-ready for Paxton’s taste. He wondered if any of these men had been at the roadblock. If any of those rifles had fired at his friend.

  “I’m personally visiting each resident,” the colonel said. “I want you to know that my door’s always open. The guard is here to help you all get through this.” He nodded at one of the soldiers and he—she?—handed Pax several small sheets of blue paper.

  “You can use these at Bugler’s Grocery,” Colonel Duveen said.

  “Use them for what?” Paxton asked. The unevenly cut slips looked like they’d been made on a photocopier.

  “Food, home products, and medical supplies,” he said. “We’ll be ensuring regular delivery every few days.” The Bugler’s had been largely emptied in the first two days of the quarantine, instantly spawning a black market.

  “For how long?” Pax asked. The government said that atypical plasmids had been discovered in the blood of changed people in Switchcreek, and supposedly in the veins of Babahoyo residents. He didn’t know what a typical plasmid was, much less an atypical one, and no one had been able to tell him how they would check for their absence.

  “As long as it takes, son.”

  “You realize nobody believes you, right?” Pax said.

  “Pardon?”

  “This is bullshit. This ‘epidemiological hot zone’ business—there’s nothing contagious, and you know it.”

  Colonel Duveen didn’t move, but the soldiers behind him shifted their feet, adjusted the angle of their rifles. The tension escalated by several degrees.

  “You’re being used,” Paxton said. He wanted to poke the man in his chest, dare him to fire. “How’s it feel to be occupying the town of your fellow Americans? Like it better than Baghdad?”

  “If you have any questions about the supply program,” the colonel said smoothly, “just call the number on each slip of paper.” Then: “Have a good day.”

  The squad backed away and climbed into a Humvee. The colonel climbed into the front passenger seat. As the vehicle pulled away, one of the soldiers near a side window took off his mask and wiped his forehead with his arm.

  Hot zone my ass, Paxton thought.

  At least the government hadn’t cut the cable or phone lines—yet. Most people in town were convinced a blackout was coming any day now. First the landlines, then the satellite and cell phone signals. The prevailing opinion was that once the town was completely isolated, the National Guard would quietly ship them off in small groups to a secret prison.

  In the meantime, Paxton had no need to call anyone or leave town. He planned to work on the house, finish cleaning up the yard, visit his father.

  And oh yeah, cut down on the vintage.

  When he arrived at the Home he found that his father hadn’t left the bed since yesterday afternoon. He’d pissed himself hours before, and still needed to go. Pax worked the controls of the bed and helped him to his feet. Once he was upright Harlan could shuffle to the bathroom.

  Pax was angry, but there was no one to complain to. Rhonda wasn’t in the building, and most of the staff hadn’t shown up for work. The two chub men who were on duty said that they hadn’t been working the night before.

  Pax helped his father shower—soaking Pax’s shirtsleeves in the process—and then supported him as he dropped into the huge wheelchair. Pax put on one of Harlan’s huge T-shirts, then pushed him into the atrium and parked him in front of the big windows where the sunlight poured in.

  Pax draped his damp shirt across the back of the chair next to him and sat, exhausted. Together they waited for the vintage to flow in like the tide.

  There were no newspapers to distract them—Mr. DuChamp hadn’t received any new issues since the start of the quarantine—so they sat before the windows and looked acros
s the foothills to Mount Clyburn. During the first quarantine, the hill the Home sat on would have been beyond the southern checkpoint, but Rhonda had somehow negotiated a new border with the National Guard. She made sure everyone knew that she held daily meetings with Colonel Duveen and had won concessions. She said she’d gotten the curfew moved from dusk to 9:00 p.m. She’d probably take credit for the coupons unless they turned out to be unpopular.

  “The leaves are turning,” his father said. Pax nodded. Red and gold dotted the mountain and the tops of the highest hills, each tree a pixel.

  After awhile Pax said, “Did I ever tell you about Hillbilly Bobsled?”

  Harlan looked at him quizzically.

  “It was something Deke thought of,” Pax said. “In the fall, when the gullies were full of leaves, Deke and Jo and me would cut up cardboard boxes and make sleds. After awhile the leaves would get packed down and you could really fly.”

  “Like to scare me to death.”

  “You saw us? You never stopped us.”

  “Paxton, you may think my sole job as your father was to stamp out every joy in your life—”

  “I never said that.”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  Pax started to reply, then stopped himself. He wasn’t here to fight. He took a breath, exhaled.

  His right hand was trembling again. He moved his hands to his lap, left hand over the right. The tremor had shown up a couple days ago, coming and going at random. He felt as if he were losing ownership of his body. Nerves fired without permission, muscles twitched in response—a thousand conversations he wasn’t privy to.

  “So you went to the funeral,” his father said. “A lot of people?”

  “The whole town showed up,” Pax said. “So many people didn’t get in that they’re going to have an additional viewing tonight. The burial’s tomorrow morning. It was a good service, though. You would have liked it. A lot of people stood up to speak.”