by JL Bryan
So Jenny Morton was Heather’s first suspected case. But it might mean dredging the pond at the Goodling house to see if it held an infected body, whether the body was Jenny Morton or somebody else. Of course, that sort of thing was what all the Homeland Security money was for.
Unless Jenny had slipped unnoticed out of the pond and was still alive, as Darcy had said. A visit to the Morton house would also be high on her priority list.
She had so little to go on, she might as well investigate these anomalies.
The bodies were slowly being identified and their listings marked DECEASED in the database. When that process was complete, she might have more useful information.
For now, all she had was Darcy Metcalf and her odd talk of witchcraft.
Late in the afternoon, Darcy brought some fresh-cut daisies and pansies from her mother’s garden to lay them on the walkway in front of Ashleigh’s house. Her flowers from two days ago had withered, of course, but her note was still there.
She frowned as she stepped closer. The little envelope had been torn open. Darcy lay the bouquet down and picked up the envelope.
The hand-written note, where she’d poured out to Ashleigh how much she missed her, was gone.
Darcy frowned.
“Hi there,” a voice said, and she jumped
The boy who approached looked her own age, or a little older. He had scruffy patches of early beard growth, midnight black hair, and cloud-gray eyes that immediately reminded her of Ashleigh. And he was incredibly cute.
“Oh!” Darcy said. “Hi.”
“You’re the one who’s been leaving flowers for Ashleigh,” he said.
“Um. Yeah. I’m Darcy Metcalf.” She held out her hand, tentatively, but he didn’t shake it.
“I’m Tommy.” He folded his arms.
“Are you Ashleigh’s…cousin, or something?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Yep. Her cousin. Tommy Goodling.”
“Wow. I didn’t know…I mean, I…”
“They don’t talk about us much. They probably wouldn’t want anybody to know I’m in town. We’re sort of the bad branch of the Goodlings.” Tommy winked.
Darcy giggled.
“So, I’ve been waiting here for hours,” Tommy said. “Where is everybody? Where’s Ashleigh?”
“Oh.” Darcy felt sad for him. “You don’t know.”
“Don’t know what?”
“Um, maybe Dr. Goodling or Mrs. Goodling will be home soon.” Darcy didn’t know how to tell him the bad news. It should probably come from family, she thought. Dr. Goodling would know just what to do. “I mean, they’re kind of missing. A lot of people are missing right now. The authorities are straightening everything out, though.”
“I don’t understand,” Tommy said.
“Um…oh!” Darcy pulled her key ring from her purse. “I have a spare key to the Goodlings’ house. I feed Maybelle when they’re out of town.”
“Maybelle?”
“She’s de-barked, so she’s creepy.” Darcy led him to the front door and unlocked it. “I was going to feed her and take her out. Want to help?”
Darcy led him into the house. A Welsh Corgi jogged up to them, then opened its mouth and rasped at Tommy.
“She’s really sweet, actually.” Darcy rubbed the dog’s head. Maybelle gave a few more soundless barks at Tommy, then followed Darcy deeper into the house. In the laundry room, Darcy filled Maybelle’s bowl with food.
The Goodlings made pretty good money, Tommy thought. Their house was spacious and full of sunlight. Some of the rooms were two stories high.
He wandered into the living room and looked at the photographs on the wall. There was the object of his obsession, the girl whose face filled his dreams. Golden hair, enchanting eyes, mysterious smile. In the pictures, she was every age, selling Girl Scout cookies, playing the Virgin Mary in a children’s play, kneeling in her cheerleading uniform with her fist tucked under her chin.
While Darcy filled the dog’s water bowl, Tommy went upstairs.
He found Ashleigh’s room right away. It was large and frilly, with a private bathroom and walk-in closet, and everything here smelled sweet.
Tommy sprawled on her bed and buried his face in her down-stuffed pillows. He sniffed deep. This was the right place, the right girl.
“Um, hey, Tommy?”
He lifted his face from the pillow. Darcy stood in the doorway, watching him.
“What?” he asked.
“So I guess I should go,” Darcy said. “You can wait around here.”
“Wait!” Tommy stood up. “Where is Ashleigh? I have to know.”
“Um…”
“Tell me!’ Tommy shouted. He seized the girl and shook her. “Where is Ashleigh?”
“She’s dead!” Darcy wailed, and then she broke down crying. She sank to the carpet. “She’s dead! Jenny Mittens killed her!”
Tommy squatted down and looked her in the eyes. He squeezed her arm tight, pushing fear into her.
“Explain,” he said.
Darcy led him into the back yard, past the duck pond and the shaded outdoor swing to a magnolia tree with sprawling arms and royal purple blossoms.
“It’s called a Purple Queen magnolia,” Darcy said. “It was Ashleigh’s favorite. That’s why I buried her here.”
Darcy pointed to the giant gnarled roots of the tree, which might have been hundreds of years old. A section of the otherwise immaculate lawn had been churned up between the roots, leaving a muddy mess.
“Ashleigh is…buried here?” Tommy asked. He felt dizzy. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.
“Well, Jenny turned her all to bones and little pieces,” Darcy was blubbering, with a little drizzle of snot running from her nose. “It was so bad. And Dr. Goodling never came home. And I couldn’t just leave her there. She was my best friend,” Darcy sobbed.
Tommy felt kind of bad for the girl. He wanted to reach out and comfort her, but he could never do that. His touch never comforted anyone.
“I wish she could come back,” Darcy said. “I wish it was me instead of her. I’m the one who sinned. I’m the one God should have taken.”
Tommy stared at the churned earth. Fury swelled inside him. The girl had been alive only a few weeks ago. Alive and ready to give him answers, bring him understanding. But something had happened, and he’d missed her completely.
If he’d been faster, and if he’d been here for her, she would still be alive.
Tommy screamed and punched the solid trunk of the magnolia. “Fuck!” he said.
Darcy cringed. Tommy seized her by the shoulders again, and he snarled into her face.
“Who did this?” he shouted. “Where are they?”
Darcy told him.
Chapter Twelve
When Jenny heard the engine in her driveway, she thought it would be one of the government vehicles. Or maybe her dad, if they were finally letting people back into town.
She stood up, walked to the front door, and grabbed a pair of light cotton gloves from the basket by the door. Seth sat on the couch in front of the TV.
“Where are you going?”
“Out to see who it is.”
“Wait,” Seth said. “Maybe they’re just turning around or something.”
“You can come with me if you want.” Jenny pushed open the screen door and stepped onto the front porch.
It wasn’t a Homeland Security or National Guard vehicle in her driveway, though. It was a Harley-Davidson, painted with a fire-red gargoyle. The man who stepped off it wasn’t in a uniform, either, but a denim jacket and black jeans.
“Hey!” Seth opened the screen door and stepped in front of Jenny. “Who are you?”
The biker was a young man with black hair, maybe a year or two older than them. He didn’t wear a helmet. He took off his sunglasses as he approached.
“Are you Jenny?” he demanded.
“I asked you first,” Seth said.
“Did you?” He glared at Seth. His eyes w
ere a rainy shade of gray, and Jenny had only seen one other person with eyes like that.
“What do you want?” Seth asked.
“I want to find the person who killed Ashleigh Goodling.” He pointed at Jenny. “Was it you?”
“You still haven’t told us who you are.”
The young man kept walking toward the porch, so Seth descended the steps to meet him.
“Seth,” Jenny whispered, but he ignored her.
“You better get out of here right now,” Seth said.
“I’m leaving soon,” the young man said. “After I take care of this.”
He threw the first punch, and Seth dodged out of the way. Seth landed a fist in the young man’s stomach, and he doubled over and backed away.
“Go,” Seth said.
The man sprang up and clapped his hands to either side of Seth’s head. He bared his teeth.
Seth shuddered in his grasp, as if being electrocuted, and then he screamed. The man punched Seth in the face twice, one quick jab with each fist. Then he used one foot to sweep Seth’s ankles out from under him, and Seth crashed to the ground.
The man spun around and stalked up the steps toward Jenny.
Jenny backed up. She took off her gloves and let them fall to the porch floorboards.
“You don’t want to touch me,” Jenny said.
The young man hesitated a moment, as if her comment had thrown him off guard. Then he ascended the final step.
“I’m serious,” Jenny said. The cold shadow was taking over inside her, the ancient and evil thing that had killed so many over the millenia. It seemed particularly strong when Seth was hurt or in danger.
“You killed Ashleigh Goodling?” the gray-eyed young man glared at her.
“You’re right. I killed her.” Jenny folded her arms and glared back. “You want to be next?”
He seized both her hands and squeezed. Jenny pushed the pox into him, willing her infection to burn in deep.
Something lashed out at her from his touch, like a lightning flash of dark, twisted energy.
And then she was terrified. She’d had a recurring dream, the last few nights, of all the diseased people from the town green, all surrounding her, closing in on her, accusing her of murder, and then tearing and slashing at her.
Now she had the sense that they were coming for her. Any moment they would pour out the windows and door onto her porch, or smash up through the floorboards, grabbing and biting at her. They would come boiling out of the woods, screaming her name.
And the attack would be led by the young man squeezing her hands now. Already, he looked like one of her victims, open sores and bloody rashes spreading up his arms, boils and blisters opening on his face—
He screamed and let go of her hands. He stumbled down her porch stairs, lost his balance and fell into the dirt.
Jenny trembled where she stood, still terrified of him.
He pushed up to his feet.
“What the fuck are you?” he screamed. His face was covered in pus and black swellings.
“What the fuck are you?” Jenny whispered.
He ran to his bike, turned a wide circle in Jenny’s front yard, and then roared away.
Jenny stumbled down to Seth, on her shaking legs, and helped him up. He still wore a shocked look on his face.
“Was it my great-grandfather?” Seth whispered. “Was he here?”
“Let’s get inside, Seth,” Jenny whispered. “I want to lock up.”
They went into the house and bolted all the doors and latched all the windows. Without discussing it, they pulled all the window curtains tight, then turned off all the lights so no one could peer in at them.
They huddled together under her blankets, shivering, gripped with their individual fears. Shapeless monsters seemed to threaten them from the dark all night.
Jenny didn’t want to admit it, but she was even feeling a little scared of Seth, too.
Just before sunrise, Tommy rode out of Ashleigh’s driveway. He was covered in mud. He’d left the clay-smeared shovel on the floor of the workshop, which was built onto the garage, and closed the door. Maybe nobody would notice it for a while.
Tommy had found Ashleigh’s remains, wrapped in a Sunday dress, just as Darcy had told him. Along with the skull and broken bones, Darcy had thrown in a gold cross necklace and some kind of silver ring.
Tommy then stuffed Ashleigh’s remains into a backpack he found in Ashleigh’s house—Ashleigh’s, he assumed, from the colorful, girly patches added to it, lots of flowers and animals and hearts.
He’d crammed the backpack into one of the motorcycle’s saddlebags. And now he was leaving town.
He passed a convoy of vehicles going the other way, towards Ashleigh’s neighborhood. There were a couple of the Homeland Security cars, a yellow Caterpillar excavating machine, and some kind of truck full of pipes and hoses.
Tommy kept his head low as he drove past them.
He didn’t fully understand what had happened the night before. He’d put the scare in both those kids, for sure, but they’d given him a little parting gift, hadn’t they? The infection was all over his arms, his torso, his neck and face.
You don’t want to touch me, she’d said. The same thing Tommy had said himself, countless times. It was sometimes a threat, sometimes a warning. Sometimes just a matter-of-fact observation.
And she’d been right. She had a thing inside her as bad as Tommy’s. Worse, even. Tommy didn’t know if he would heal—his sores had run bloody all night as he worked the shovel. But he was pretty sure that if he’d held on to that Jenny girl for another minute, he would have died.
Chapter Thirteen
The day was uncomfortably warm for a biohazard suit. Heather was sweating as she watched men in similar suits handle the pumping of the pond.
They’d dropped a pair of long, fat hoses into the duck pond. Pump machinery on their truck slurped up the black water. The water shot out of another hose, turning the far end of the Goodlings’ back yard into a swamp.
Nobody had answered the door when they arrived that morning. Attempts at interviewing neighbors hadn’t gotten far, but nobody had seen the Goodlings in days. Heather felt like there was something the town just didn’t want to tell outsiders like her.
Draining the pond was a sluggish process, so Heather went in to explore the house. They had broken in the back door to confirm nobody was there before they brought the pumping equipment into the yard.
The house was airy and bright, with huge picture windows and open modernist-style staircases. Everything was cheerful. Every room, she noticed, included a shrine to Ashleigh—her ribbons and awards and trophies and pictures. It was clear Ashleigh’s parents adored her, maybe even to an unhealthy extent. Like they all but worshiped their only child.
She identified Ashleigh’s room, a frilly princess-style theme with a canopy bed, and lots of pictures of Ashleigh and her friends on the wall. Prominently featured were two girls, one a freckled girl with red hair, one a pretty black girl. Heather recognized her. Neesha Bailey, the sole African-American caught in the outbreak. Another piece of the puzzle.
In some of the picture frames, half the picture had been cut out, leaving Ashleigh posing by herself.
In an end table drawer, Heather found the missing halves of those pictures. They each featured a handsome boy with blue eyes and strawberry blond hair. The pictures seemed to be taken over a period of years. They’d been together a long time, for a couple of teenagers.
Heather wasn’t sure how any of this could be relevant to the investigation. But data was thin. No hint of a pathogen had been identified, despite the laboratory trucks running night and day inside the old warehouse that Homeland Security had assigned for the testing of the bodies. The two refrigerated trucks were parked in there, too, and the whole interior of the warehouse sealed with white plastic sheeting. Nothing was to be moved out of the town yet, per Homeland Security.
The broad public screening hadn’t yielded mu
ch, either, as far as anyone could tell. Nobody had any unusual illnesses, or any symptoms similar to those of the confirmed cases. It was as if the disease had snuck into town one night, killed two hundred people, and then vanished without a trace.
That didn’t sound possible to Heather. It sounded supernatural. And she did not believe in the supernatural.
She found signs of a struggle in Ashleigh’s room. The window over the bed was smashed out, the curtains puffing in the breeze. Heather leaned out and looked down at the paved white walkway that curved from the Goodlings’ driveway to their front door.
If there had been any wreckage below, shattered glass or broken window frame, someone had cleaned it up. The only thing on the walkway beneath her was a bouquet of assorted flowers. They looked fresh and bright from here, as if someone had just set them out last night.
Heather would have to jot her observations on her small personal notepad, as soon as she was out of this bulky suit.
She returned downstairs and walked back outside.
The back slope of the Goodlings’ lawn was flooded. Much of the water had collected in a deep puddle between the roots of a large magnolia tree.
Heather tromped toward the pond.
It was mostly empty. The hoses sucked mud at the bottom.
She didn’t see a body down there, infected or otherwise.
Schwartzman would probably grouse about the money, but Heather knew emergency funds were coming from Homeland Security. Besides, if there had been another case, it would have been important to get the body quarantined.
Or maybe not. Nothing contagious had been found. There was no disease, only symptoms. Heather couldn’t imagine what that might mean.
And Heather had checked off two items on her list, visit the Goodling home and drain the pond. She’d discovered nothing conclusive. She didn’t hold out much hope for her next stop, either, but sometimes epidemiology required the baleen whale approach—suck in all the information you could get, and hope you picked up something you needed.
