by Ronald Malfi
Tim climbed up out of his chair and ambled over to a bottle of his moonshine that stood on the counter. He snatched up two lowball glasses and, returning to the table, poured them both two fingers each. Tim knocked his back all in one gulp. David couldn’t even manage to reach out and grasp the glass, he felt so weak.
“Listen,” Tim said after a time. “I love that little girl of yours. And I love you, too, man. You know that. And I’ll do whatever it is you want me to do. You came here for my help, and that’s what I promise to give. If you want to stay here until the end of time, then the place is yours. No one will ever find you here. But I also want you to do something for me. Okay?”
David lifted his gaze to meet Tim’s. “What’s that?” he said.
“I want you to consider the possibility that your grief, your pain, and your anger over what happened to Kathy might be coloring your perception of all this.”
“What are you saying?”
“Kathy was on antidepressant meds, which the doctors took her off of,” Tim said. “You said she had been seeing a shrink, and then that stopped cold turkey, too. More than that, you said that she . . . well, that she’d changed over the past year, growing paranoid and depressed and—”
“And what?”
“She was headed down a bad path before those doctors ever got to her. Later, at the hospital, you said she’d stopped eating.”
“I know what I said.”
Tim held up one hand. “Please don’t get defensive.”
“I’d just like to know where you’re going with this.”
“David, Kathy killed herself. Those doctors didn’t do it.”
“They allowed it to happen.”
“Maybe they never expected it. You didn’t expect it, either. And you were her husband.”
Briefly, the moths on the windowpane at Tim’s back appeared to form a scowling face. Then their image blurred as David’s eyes grew wet.
“What I’m saying,” Tim went on, “is that there’s nothing here that tells me your daughter is in any danger if she was to cooperate with that Dr. Kapoor guy and the rest of his staff.”
“She’s not a fucking guinea pig,” David said. “Anyway, Kapoor’s dead. Some other guy took over. They’ve been calling my phone, trying to trick me, to get me to turn her over to them.”
“What about what Ellie wants?”
“What about it?”
“Earlier you told me Eleanor wants to turn herself in.”
“Her opinion doesn’t matter,” David said flatly. “I’m her father. I call the shots. And didn’t you just tell me earlier that I’m under no moral obligation to sacrifice my daughter for the rest of the world?”
“That’s true,” Tim said. “But it’s different if it isn’t a sacrifice at all. If it’s just your fear—”
“I’m not turning her in. That’s it, Tim. I won’t do it.”
“Fair enough.” Tim poured himself another shot of moonshine. “Then listen closely to me, okay?” Tim leaned over the table, bringing his face closer to David’s. Close enough that David could smell the moonshine on his breath. “If that’s what you want, then that’s what I’ll do. As long as I’m alive on this planet, I will help you take care of that beautiful little girl.”
“Thank you,” David said.
“Drink with me,” Tim said.
David picked up the glass and tossed the ’shine to the back of his throat. It felt like a fireball blasting down his esophagus.
They drank together, mostly in silence, for the next forty minutes or so. After a time, Tim stood, ambled over to where David sat, and kissed the top of David’s head.
“I love you,” Tim said. “Good night.”
Alone now, David listened to the house settle down all around him. After a time, he got up and wended his way through the halls until he came to his bedroom door. He stood there in the hallway for some time, a headache beginning to work its way up from the base of his neck and over the top of his skull. In the end, he decided he didn’t want to sleep alone.
He went into Ellie’s room and found her snoring gently in the large bed, her profile silvered by the moonlight coming through the bedroom window. The window was cracked open a bit, and a chill autumn breeze filtered into the room, cooling his flesh.
Careful not to wake his daughter, David climbed into bed and curled up behind her. He closed his eyes and inhaled the smell of her.
Little Spoon, he thought, draping an arm around her.
59
He dreamed of giant bugs again, and the world was filled with their sound—an unrelenting, mechanical buzzing that followed him out of sleep and into the real world.
Tim stood above him, shaking him awake. The bedroom light was on, and the buzzing was still there. Beside David in bed, Ellie groaned and rolled away from him.
“Get up,” Tim said. “Hurry.”
“What’s that noise?” David said.
“An alarm,” said Tim. “Someone’s coming.”
David sat up and rolled out of bed. Ellie’s eyes snapped open and found him. She asked what was going on. David said he wasn’t sure. He thought he’d misheard Tim. Out in the hallway, Tim shouted for Gany, his voice loud over the buzzing alarm.
“Stay here,” David told Ellie. He got up and hurried out into the hall.
Tim stood at the end of the hallway, opening a closet door. Gany appeared, pulling a sweatshirt down over her head.
“Who’s coming?” David said.
“I don’t know.” Tim took a long gun from the closet and held it out to him. “Take it,” he said.
David took it. It was heavy, cold, and smelled of oil.
Tim placed a hand on Gany’s shoulder. “Go sit with Ellie. Don’t come out unless I tell you to. Understand?”
“Yes,” she said, and hurried down the hall, brushing by David as she went.
Tim took a second shotgun from the closet and what looked like several boxes of ammunition.
“The fuck’s going on, Tim?”
“Come ’ere,” Tim said, and beckoned David to follow him into the adjoining room.
It was the room with the two computer monitors, only now the screen savers were gone. David saw that each screen was divided into quadrants, each quadrant providing a live CCTV feed from various places around Tim’s property, to include the exterior of the farmhouse. The digital clock on the screen told him it was 4:53 A.M.
Tim tapped the keyboard and the buzzing alarm silenced. He tapped the keyboard a second time and the images on the computer screens changed. In one of the quadrants, a pair of headlights cut swiftly through the night along an unpaved wooded road. David recognized it as the road leading up to the farmhouse.
“Shit,” David said.
“They’re maybe three minutes out,” Tim said. “The system should have picked them up sooner. I’ve got an alarm system down in the foothills by the main road that never went off. They must have deactivated it somehow.”
“They found us . . .”
“I don’t know,” Tim said. “They don’t look like the government or the police. Something isn’t right.” His fingers danced along the keyboard, and the angle of the cameras changed yet again. This time, they were afforded a long shot of the oncoming vehicle, its dual headlamps jouncing over the rutted dirt road, the video grainy and tinted emerald green. “It’s just one vehicle.”
“Maybe more are on their way,” David said. The idea sent his stomach into his socks.
Tim tossed him a box of ammo. “You know how to use a shotgun?”
“No.”
Tim shouted for Gany, then pulled a pistol from the rear of his pants. He handed it to David. It was Cooper’s Glock. “Use this, then.”
Gany appeared in the doorway. Ellie clung to her hip and peered into the room. She looked frightened.
Tim handed Gany the shotgun. “Take Eleanor to the back bedroom. Barricade the door. Anyone forces their way in there, you use this.”
“Yeah, okay,” Gany said, breathl
ess.
“Dad,” Ellie said. Her gaze fell on the pistol in David’s hand.
“It’ll be okay, baby,” David told her.
“Come on,” Tim said, and shoved them all out into the hallway.
They split up, Gany and Ellie heading down the darkened corridor toward the rear of the house, Tim and David hurrying toward the front. Tim swung open the front door and a cold night wind accosted them. They went out onto the porch.
David couldn’t see the approaching vehicle’s headlights yet through the trees, but he could hear the growl of its engine. It was moving very quickly toward them.
“Go to the far end of the porch,” Tim instructed. He pointed to a pitch-black corner. “I’ll stand front and center. I’ve got floodlights on the roof,” Tim said. “When the vehicle pulls up, motion sensors will turn the lights on. They’ll be lit up like a football field and they won’t be able to see us. But just in case, you go over there. I’ll soak up their attention. They won’t see you with your gun pointed at them in the dark.”
David looked at the gun in his hand.
“How good of a shot are you?” Tim asked.
“Fuck if I know.”
Astoundingly, Tim laughed.
Headlights appeared through the trees.
David ran to his corner, tucked himself down in the shadows. The gun felt like it suddenly weighed fifty pounds; he needed both hands to lift it up and rest his wrists along the porch railing for support.
Tim shoved a number of slugs into the shotgun, charged it, then pointed it toward the approaching vehicle as he took up position at the top of the porch steps.
He hugged my daughter on those steps, David had time to think.
The headlights broke clear of the trees, the large SUV’s engine snarling like a wild animal. At the same instant, the floodlights on the roof burst on, so bright David winced and turned away, though not before he saw the white, mud-stippled SUV come burning across the lawn in a cloud of bluish exhaust.
The vehicle came to a sudden stop, its tires gouging trenches in the earth. Giant insects flitted by in the twin glow of the SUV’s headlamps.
The gun shook in David’s hand.
For several seconds, nothing happened. But then Tim leveled the shotgun at the vehicle and shouted for the driver to identify himself. This was greeted by more silence. “In the event that you’re illiterate or maybe you just happened to miss all my fucking signs,” Tim called out into the night, “you’re fucking trespassing. You’ve got five seconds to back outta here before I blow out your tires.”
No response from the driver. The glare from the floodlights on the roof of the farmhouse made it impossible to see inside the SUV’s windows. There could be a small army in there, David thought.
Tim descended a single step. He raised the shotgun to eye level, still pointing it at the vehicle. From his position on the porch, David released a shuddery breath. Sweat stung his eyes. The gun was slippery with perspiration and suddenly difficult to hold.
The rear door of the SUV opened, and a man in a camouflaged jumpsuit stepped out. He was a big man, broad across the chest. He held a rifle but kept it pointed at the ground.
“No one has to die here tonight,” the man announced. He was pale-skinned and with a few days’ growth of dark beard wreathing his jawline. The hair on top of his head was cut high and tight, in a military fashion.
“Who the hell are you?” Tim said.
“Doesn’t matter.” The man’s voice was calm, the expression on his face almost friendly. “Put your gun down.”
“Like hell,” Tim said.
“Do it.” It was a woman’s voice, right at their back. David turned and saw Gany standing in the doorway, the shotgun pointing at Tim’s back. “Put the gun down, Tim.” She looked in David’s direction. “You, too, David.”
“Ah, Gany.” Tim sounded like a disappointed parent. “What the hell have you gotten yourself mixed up in?”
Gany’s face was firm, expressionless. “I’m not mixed up,” she said. There was an edge to her tone, an apprehension. “Now, put that gun down, Tim. I’m not joking.”
“Better listen to her,” said the man in the jumpsuit as he closed the distance between them. A second man stepped out of the driver’s side of the SUV. He sported a frizzy salt-and-pepper beard that hung down to his collarbone, and he wore a red bandanna on his head. He had a pistol in a holster at his hip.
In slow motion, Tim set the shotgun down on the porch. Then he raised both hands.
Gany swiveled her weapon in David’s direction.
“Where’s my daughter?”
“She’s inside,” said Gany. “She’s fine. Now, put the gun down.”
“Ellie!” he shouted. When the girl didn’t respond, he called her name again.
Faintly, from within the belly of the house: “Daddy . . .”
“Put the gun down and you can go be with her,” Gany said.
David knelt and set the pistol down at his feet.
“In the house,” said Jumpsuit, coming up the porch steps.
Gany stepped aside and Tim went through the door. David followed.
They were shepherded into the living room, where Ellie was sitting on the sofa. As David came into the room, Ellie jumped up and rushed to him, wrapping her arms around him. He kissed the top of her head.
Gany, Jumpsuit, and Bandanna came into the room. Jumpsuit handed his rifle to Bandanna, and the instant the gun was out of his hands, a broad smile filled his face. He motioned to the sofa. “Why don’t the three of you have a seat.”
No one moved.
Jumpsuit’s smile fell away. “Sit down.”
They sat, Ellie wedged between them on the sofa. David kept an arm around her.
“So, you’re Tim,” Jumpsuit said, the broad smile returning. “Heard a lot about you.”
“Who the fuck are you?” Tim growled.
“That’s not important. What’s important is this little lady right here.” Jumpsuit fixed his gaze on Ellie. He took a step toward her and bent at the knees to meet her eyes. “Hello, darling.”
Ellie quaked and David squeezed her against him.
“I heard tell that you possess some rather unusual abilities, sweetheart,” said Jumpsuit.
David looked at Gany. “What’d you tell them?”
Gany returned his stare but didn’t respond. She held the shotgun on him.
“There’ve been rumors circulating the underground about people who’ve been displaying some unique talents lately,” Jumpsuit continued. That smile was still firmly etched onto his face. This close, and in the soft light of the living room, David could see a puckered pink scar traversing the left side of his face, from temple to the lower corner of his jaw. “Some say there’s folks out there can actually heal the sick. Can you imagine?”
Jumpsuit reached out as if to caress the side of Ellie’s face, but David slapped his hand away before he could manage it. Without missing a beat, the guy in the bandanna had his pistol out of its holster and pointed it at David.
“Don’t you touch her,” David warned him.
Jumpsuit stood and raised both hands, as if to show that he’d meant no harm by the gesture. He kept his eyes on Ellie.
“Gany says she witnessed you doing a little magic of your own, sweetheart,” Jumpsuit said. “Tried to help a dying girl out on some highway. Is this true?”
Ellie said nothing.
“You try and save some girl’s life?”
“No,” Ellie said curtly.
Jumpsuit’s eyebrows arched. “No?” he said. “Then what was it you did out there?”
“I just made her feel better so she didn’t suffer.”
“She touched her,” Gany said, “and the girl just calmed down. She touched the mother, too. And when we went back to the car, she held my hand and it . . . it was like I could still feel it going on inside her. It made my knees weak. It was like magic.”
“Is that what you do?” Jumpsuit said. He bent down on his kn
ees now so that he was face-to-face with Ellie. “You touch people and make them feel better?”
“Yes.”
“Can you heal the sick?”
“No.”
“I’ll bet you can,” said Jumpsuit, “only you just don’t know it yet.” He extended his hand, palm-up. There was grit beneath his fingernails. “Go on,” he said. “Touch me. Let me see what you can do.”
Ellie looked at David. Despite a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach, he nodded for her to go ahead.
Ellie reached out and placed her hand atop Jumpsuit’s open palm. Her pale flesh against his olive skin made her look like a ghost. Jumpsuit’s fingers closed around Ellie’s hand, his eyes locked onto hers.
At first, nothing happened. But then Jumpsuit’s smile faltered. His eyes widened, as if in surprise.
“You’re nervous,” Ellie said. “You’re acting tough on the outside, but on the inside, you’re scared.”
David thought he saw doubt briefly pass over Jumpsuit’s face.
And then it was like some great vacuum had sucked the air out of the room. The hairs on David’s arms stood up, and he could tell, judging by the looks on everyone else’s faces, that they felt it, too. The air had become charged with some preternatural energy.
“Your name is Aaron Kahle,” Ellie said.
“Jesus fuck,” said Aaron Kahle. That smile returned, but it wasn’t just for show anymore—there was genuine awe there, an unmasked incredulity. He turned to Gany and said, “Touching her, it’s like a sedative. It’s . . . it’s almost euphoric.” He turned back to Ellie. “What else can you tell just from touching me?”
“That you’re not a nice man,” Ellie said. “That you’ve hurt people. You’ve killed them.”
Kahle quickly withdrew his hand, that wolfish smile morphing into a grimace. The moment he did so, David could suddenly breathe again; the hairs on his arms relaxed. Kahle held his hand up before his eyes, as if to see if she’d left behind any marks, any side effects. He flexed the fingers, wiggled them. Made a fist. Then he lowered his hand and leaned closer to Ellie.
“You’re a very special little girl,” said Kahle. “I’ll bet there’s a whole world of things you can do in time.” That wolfish grin reappeared. “Not to mention that special blood you’ve got pumping through your veins.” Kahle turned that grin on David. “She’s immune?”
