Would Keaton’s wife try to shoot him?
Perhaps. The last time they’d met, Dez had been an intruder in her home. Whatever she’d said to her husband, it was enough for Keaton to condemn Dez and arrange a public execution.
For a time, Dez muscled his way through a particularly nasty stretch of forest. What would have taken him only minutes to navigate had there been a path took him nearly an hour because of the undergrowth’s density. Dez was lashed by thorns, his cheeks scourged by branches. What irony there would be, he thought, if he lost an eye, not in the insane fight to the death in the Four Winds, but to an ill-timed run-in with a sapling branch.
Dez was just getting ready to pause for a rest when he heard a door clack shut. A screen door.
He had reached Keaton’s house.
Dez knew it even before the trees thinned and he spotted the brick ranch ahead. He pushed through the bushes and saw how pallid the horizon had grown; dawn was encroaching swiftly now. As he was navigating the last few saplings on the forest’s edge, he saw the pale figure staggering away from the Keatons’ screened-in porch and shambling toward the front yard.
Tom Chaney. He could see that Tom was in the process of changing from a werewolf into a man again.
Dez swallowed hard. No.
Taking care not to make a sound, Dez emerged from the woods, made his way through the Keatons’ back yard, and rounded the corner of their brick ranch. He had no desire to enter the house.
When he reached the front yard he spotted Chaney lying supine, naked, gazing up at the pearly dark sky. Even from a distance Dez could discern the gleam of Chaney’s hairy skin. Something wet slicking his front. Something dark and wet.
No.
Chaney did not act surprised when Dez pulled up behind him. Dez studied Chaney upside down; the man’s expression seemed beatific, as though old demons had finally been laid to rest.
“I knew you’d find me,” Chaney said in his thick voice.
Chaney’s transformation was nearly complete; the only signs he’d been anything but human were the greater proliferation of hair on his chest and the slightly protuberant cheekbones. Yet even these were altering, the wolf form receding into its uneasy slumber.
“You remind me of my big brother,” Chaney said.
Dez could feel the heavy throb of his heart. Like mallet blows on his ribcage. “I didn’t know you had a brother.”
“I told you about my sister,” Chaney said, “but not my brother. He’s – was – very protective.”
“Oh yeah?” Dez said, staring off at the forest. Unable to look at Tom.
“Uh-huh. He always watched out for me. Before the bombs, I mean. He kept me out of trouble. Stuck up for me when the kids picked on me.”
Dez scarcely heard.
“When I’d do bad things,” Chaney murmured.
Dez glanced at him sharply. “What bad things?”
“It’s just nature,” Chaney said, grinning in a way that made Dez want to shriek in horror. “I always liked women. Anything wrong with that?” He looked up at Dez in challenge.
“That depends,” Dez said, his voice barely controlled.
“When my brother changed, he took off. He was smarter than I was. He knew what was happening to him. Or that something was happening to him. He went away so he wouldn’t…hurt one of us.”
A spate of dizziness threatened to buckle Dez’s knees. He forced himself to remain standing.
Chaney’s dark eyes scanned the sky overhead. “It’s getting light out.”
“What did you do?”
Chaney continued to watch the sky. “Need to find me some clothes. I bet Keaton has some.”
“Tom,” Dez said, louder this time. “What did you do?”
“Keaton deserved it,” Chaney said, his tone conversational. “Him and his family.”
Ah, fuck, Dez thought, closing his eyes. Already a wet heat was building in his chest. “Are they alive?” Dez asked, his throat dry. He nodded toward the brick ranch, where the windows were as black as pitch. “Are Keaton’s wife and daughter alive in there?”
Chaney’s grin widened. “They were.”
Dez turned away. Jesus Christ, he thought. Jesus Christ, no.
Chaney was speaking, but Dez hardly made out his words. “…and she got all uppity. You know how she is. Was. She told me to go. But by that time I’d seen the girl standing in the hall behind her. She was wearing these pink shortie shorts.” Chaney’s voice thickened. “What a body.”
Dez wiped a tear away. Said, “We gotta go, Tom. I told Iris and the others we’d meet them.”
Chaney’s voice altered, the fog of lust clearing. “Iris?”
Dez wiped his nose with the sleeve of his ill-fitting jacket. “She’s going with us.”
“She is?”
Dez nodded. “Let’s get you dressed so we can catch up to her.”
Chaney was on his feet in an instant. “Did she tell you to find me?”
Dez’s breath came in weary heaves. “Uh-huh.”
Something terrible played at the corners of Chaney’s eyes, and for a moment Dez saw the lycanthrope in him. Then it was gone. Chaney moved past him toward Keaton’s lane.
“Tom,” Dez said.
Chaney turned, frowning.
“Clothes?” Dez said, tossing a nod at Keaton’s house.
Chaney’s face spread in a goofy grin. “I forgot.” He came back, started toward the front porch.
Dez brought out the Ruger, thumbed off the safety.
Chaney heard it. His back muscles tensed.
Dez took a breath. “Tom?”
But Chaney was already turning. When he saw the gun he didn’t seem surprised. “You could let me go,” Chaney said.
Dez’s hand trembled, despite his attempts to steady it. His eyes were blurring too, and it had nothing to do with the smoke sting from the bar. “You’re obsessed with Iris.”
Chaney didn’t look scared at all. Maybe he didn’t believe Dez would do it. Or maybe the prospect of death no longer frightened him. “I’ll go the opposite way. Don’t need to take up with you guys if you don’t want me.” There was an impudent, spoiled-kid quality in Chaney’s tone. “Just let me go,” Chaney said, confident now. “No one needs to know.” The hint of a sneer. “You and Iris can be lovebirds.”
“You’ll do it again,” Dez said, to himself.
“It was the change,” Chaney said. He motioned toward the forest. “You saw it at the bar. I can’t control it.”
There was an infinitesimal moment in which Dez believed it, but it was gone so quickly it was as though it had never been there. “Why did you come to Keaton’s house?”
Chaney’s face went slack, all guile he’d been able to muster falling away. Chaney shrugged in a singularly unconvincing fashion. “I needed clothes. I knew Keaton would have some.”
“Tom,” Dez said, the gun steadying, “you didn’t come here for clothes.”
Chaney’s expression changed completely, the anguished creature Dez had known in the basement of the Four Winds returning. “They had me down there a year, Dez. More than a year. They…they treated me worse than a hound. They pissed on me, made me eat their shit to survive.” His eyes brimmed, his lips quivered. “Iris was the only reason they stopped it. Or stopped it some. She…she made them act nicer to me.”
Dez twitched the gun toward the house. “Did you rape them, Tom?”
Chaney’s eyes squeezed shut, tears streaming out the sides.
Dez asked, “Did you rape Keaton’s wife and daughter before you killed them?”
Chaney shook his head, his mouth working soundlessly.
Dez bared his teeth. “She was a child, Tom. Keaton’s daughter didn’t do anything wrong.” Dez’s voice had gone raw, almost as thick as Chaney’s. “Keaton’s wife didn’t do anything either. S
he didn’t deserve to be—”
“They were Keaton’s!” Chaney yelled. “They were his! They deserved everything they got!”
It worked on Dez like a jolt of electricity.
Chaney saw the change in Dez’s face, and Chaney’s eyes became huge, terrified moons. “You can’t do this.” Chaney shook his head. “You can’t do this!”
As Dez took aim, Chaney’s expression changed again, this time morphing into something bitter, something sinister. “My brother will hear about this. My brother will kill you.” A deranged grin. “He always knew when I was lying to him, and if you see him, he’ll know what you did.” Chaney took a step toward him, nodding. “He’s gonna make you pay for it. You and Iris and—”
Dez squeezed the trigger.
He barely saw Chaney’s head snap back, didn’t watch the man as he fell. Dez stood there for several moments, listening to the muted trickle of Chaney’s blood on the sidewalk, stood there and wondered if Chaney could still change or heal.
He didn’t.
Dez engaged the safety and returned the Ruger to his pocket. He squinted toward the lane, an irrational part of him imagining one of Keaton’s trucks, drawn by the gunshot, rumbling up the lane to take retribution on Dez for what he’d done at the Four Winds.
The lane, and Keaton’s yard, remained barren of life.
Though the light was coming faster now, the chill in the air seemed to have deepened, so that the opening at the throat of the voluminous black jacket he wore let in a constant draft, one that shivered his bones and made him long for a fire. A warm, drowsy bed.
The last place he wanted to be was inside Keaton’s ranch.
But there were things that needed doing. After moving around Chaney’s motionless body, Dez entered through the screen door.
When he came upon the first body, he wasn’t prepared for it. It was Keaton’s daughter. Her body from the neck down was a ruin. Like she’d been fed through a wood chipper. He hoped the damage had been postmortem. He hoped she hadn’t suffered too much.
She suffered, he thought. Of course she suffered.
His throat burning with bile, he made his way to the back bedroom, where he found Keaton’s wife, on the bed, similarly mutilated. He couldn’t look at her for long.
Dez went to the walk-in closet, noted how crammed with clothes it was, both Keaton’s and his wife’s, as though they’d carried on a competition to see who could collect more. Between the bedroom closet, Keaton’s dresser, and the front closet, Dez found everything he needed. He also found another gun – a .45 Smith & Wesson that could blow holes through cinder block – along with two boxes of ammunition. His backpack now full to bursting, he stripped Keaton’s daughter’s bed of sheets and blankets and began the job of wrapping her in them. It was ghastly work, not only because of the ravaged state of her body, but because of her open, staring eyes. He didn’t feel accused by those eyes, but he did see dismay in them, perplexity. Why did this happen to me? the eyes asked. Why did Chaney have to come here after it all should have ended?
Though there were two sheets and a comforter around her, the blood still leaked onto Dez’s new clothes as he carried her out of the house. After laying her body near the tree line, he went to the garage and found a shovel. Bone-weary, he set to work digging a hole, but the October ground was uncooperative, like chipping away at frozen clay. By the time he was finished, his palms were blistered and bleeding, and a sun the color of asbestos was glaring down at the back yard.
Her grave was no more than six feet long, a few feet wide, maybe three feet deep. And uneven, so that when he laid her wrapped body in the hole, her midsection was higher than her head and her feet. He didn’t like that, but then again, he didn’t like any of it. He knew he should go inside and do the same for Keaton’s wife, but the lack of sleep – How long had it been? Twenty-eight hours? Thirty? – and the absolute exhaustion were conspiring to undo him. He felt like crawling into the hole with the wrapped body and sleeping for about a month.
Dez shook his head. Jesus. Crazy talk.
He buried the body as best he could, knowing it was a poor job, knowing full well the animals would be at it, the wild dogs and maybe even the human scavengers, cannibals and vampires and God knew what else. Then there was the matter of Keaton’s wife, just lying there in the bedroom. Soon she would begin to rot, and then what? Just…leave her? He supposed he could burn the house down, but even that would require energy, and it would draw attention to him.
Maybe he was a bad person, but he couldn’t do anything for Keaton’s wife. It wasn’t spite that made him shoulder his backpack and start for the lane; it was weariness.
And fear, he realized. If any of Keaton’s entourage yet survived – and Dez thought it likely some had, as it was a good bet there were other parties spread out on raiding runs – they would eventually return here to piece together what happened to their leader. And when they found Keaton’s wife, they’d want vengeance.
With a new pair of sneakers on – they were Keaton’s, size fourteen – Dez stepped onto the concrete and made his way down the wooded lane. Not once did he look back at Tom Chaney’s body.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Nevermore
The hog farm was a hell of a lot farther than Levi had claimed. Either that or Dez had already passed it by. He supposed the fact that he was dead on his feet might have something to do with it, but feeling sorry for himself would do no good. He wished Jim the Werewolf hadn’t reclaimed his truck. Dez could sure as hell use the Dodge right now.
It was midafternoon when he first spotted the graying barn. Like Levi had said, there were no woods around the hog farm, only cornfields. Thankfully, after two years of neglect, the fields had all run to riot, and though very little of the vegetation was comprised of good, healthy cornstalks, the switchgrass and brome provided decent cover as he made his way nearer the two-story farmhouse.
It was white, with aluminum siding, and at some point in the not-so-distant past, the farmer who’d lived there had invested in one of the metal roofs that had been in vogue before the bombs. The sheet metal was an inoffensive hunter green and cut a stark contrast with the dimpled red barn roof, which had undergone no such renovation. The pair of farrowing houses, just as Levi had described, were arranged on the western portion of the property. Dez wondered how long the hogs that had lived within those white cinder block buildings had survived after the four winds, then banished the thought with a shiver.
Levi was waiting for him in a yellow folding chair in the side lawn. Dez was worried the boy would come running, enfold Dez in some gushy cinematic embrace. He considered drawing the crossbow just to disabuse Levi of the notion.
But the kid seemed to sense Dez’s extraordinary weariness and settled for a grin and a companionable squeeze on the shoulder.
Dez asked where Michael and Iris were.
“Michael’s asleep in the back bedroom,” Levi answered. “Iris is cooking a wild turkey she shot.”
Dez’s mouth flooded with saliva. He hadn’t recognized the sharp stomach pangs as hunger until now. He moved toward the front porch, Levi walking apace. “Any sign of Keaton’s people?”
Levi shook his head. “We saw a Jeep go by this morning through the garage window in Buck Creek, but other than that, nothing.”
Dez mounted the steps. He was too tired to shrug Levi off when the boy put a steadying hand on his back. “How was the garage?” Dez asked.
Levi chuckled. “Iris and Michael were pissed at me. Said it was the least comfortable place they’d ever tried to sleep.”
As he neared the door, Dez glanced at him. “Did you sleep?”
Levi grinned. “I did. I don’t think the others….” His grin faded. “You didn’t find Tom?”
Dez fought off a wave of nausea. He told himself it wasn’t guilt. “No,” he said. “No sign of him.”
If Levi had
doubts about that, he didn’t verbalize them.
“Hey, Dez?” Levi said.
Though bone-weary, Dez waited for Levi to speak.
“That doorman,” Levi said.
“Lefebvre,” Dez supplied.
“Him,” Levi agreed. “Why’d he call you the Raven?”
“Maybe because I wear all black.”
“Lots of things are all black.”
“Lefebvre had an overactive imagination,” Dez said. “Let’s get inside.”
But Levi made no move for the door.
Dez exhaled and studied the sky. “I used to teach the poem.” He glanced at Levi. “You ever read it?”
“Sure,” Levi said. “Poe’s my favorite.”
Dez closed his eyes and sought for a snatch of it, and despite his lassitude, despite the fact that he hadn’t read it in years, the words came easily:
“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted—
On this home by Horror haunted – tell me truly, I implore—
Is there – is there balm in Gilead? – tell me – tell me, I implore!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
When Dez opened his eyes and looked at Levi, the kid was watching him with a look somewhere between fear and fascination.
“What?” Dez finally said.
“That’s you,” Levi said.
Dez frowned at him. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“‘Desolate yet undaunted’,” Levi said.
“Enough,” Dez said, brushing past him. “I’m about to pass out.”
They went in, and the scent of cooking meat nearly bowled Dez over. The farmhouse was furnished exactly the way he’d have imagined it: outdated furniture, oak trim, curios and knick-knacks on every shelf and table.
Dez followed the scent of cooking meat until he reached the kitchen, where Iris stood at the stove, her back to him. For a time, all Dez did was watch Iris’s arms move – she’d donned a navy-blue sweatshirt – and inhale the maddening smell of frying turkey.
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