One of Us

by Craig DiLouie

  He said nothing. Amy stumbled back a step as he took one forward. The light blinded her now. Just empty air between them. Everything that might hold him back, the sheriff and school and his daddy, had been swept away in a single day.

  “You’d better quit,” she said. “Before you do something you regret.”

  He took another step, breathing hard. “I’ll regret it more if I don’t.”

  She tensed, getting set to give him her best haymaker. For Sally, for Jake, for Enoch. For herself.

  Then she was back in Bowie’s car. Her hand reaching in the glove box and coming out gripping a mix tape.

  Whatever strength she had drained out of her.

  “You can’t do this,” she said, tearing up. “We go to school together.”

  “Hey. Don’t cry. Come here.”

  The light died. Her body went rigid as it sensed his nearby. She let him put his arms around her. They held her gently, comforting.

  Amy leaned her head against his chest. “Thank you.”

  “Now kiss me,” he told her. “Kiss me like you want to.”

  “No, Archie. Please.”

  “The world’s coming to an end. I don’t want to die without having kissed you just once.”

  Strong hands gripped her shoulders. His mouth ground against hers. She’d read him all wrong.

  Archie Gaines knew exactly what he wanted and harbored no fear about taking it, not when there were things in the night far more terrifying.

  She moaned against his lips. Stop.

  Archie’s breath became ragged. He was no longer an angry and scared boy. He sucked and gnawed at her lips. There it was, his bite.

  She wanted to fight back, but the terror gripped her again. She wanted to call out for Jake and Mama. Her scream caught in her throat.

  Help me, she prayed.

  Ants along her scalp, craving her nails’ release.

  Please. Make him stop.

  Nothing happened.

  “Perfect,” he murmured. “You’re so—”

  The room filled with a gurgling sound like the roar of an empty belly.

  Archie reared back. “What was that?”

  She’d scared him good. Now he’d leave her and Jake alone. He’d leave and never come back. She didn’t let go. She couldn’t let go. Amy wrapped her arms around him and held on tight, awake but no longer in control of her body.

  Gurgling.

  Archie tried to push her away.

  Then screamed as her head ruptured into a splayed, toothy star.

  Her eyes wide open this time as the quivering jaws snapped shut.

  Forty-Three

  Amy drained the pipes into the bathroom tub and sink. She stripped off her bloody dress and sat scrubbing her arms in a few inches of tepid water. The flashlight rested on the tiled floor next to the bathtub, its light aimed at the ceiling.

  Her body felt raw and tingly where she scrubbed. Striped bruises on her arms. Her mind in a daze. The water turned red.

  Poor Archie Gaines.

  He was gone now. The monster had kept her safe. She wasn’t perfect and would never have a normal life. She was a plague girl, and the monster she carried inside her would fight to protect her.

  And despite her regret about Archie, a part of her thought the boy had it coming for all he and his daddy had done.

  A gentle knock on the door. Amy closed the curtain and let the water drain.

  “Come in,” she said.

  The door opened. Jake’s voice: “Amy?”

  “Hand me my robe. It’s on the hook on the door.”

  She stood dripping and reached to take it. “I’m glad you stayed.”

  “What did you do to him?”

  Amy slid the robe over her shoulders and tied it at the waist. Then she opened the curtain. Jake flinched at the sudden movement.

  “I thought you wasn’t scared of monsters,” she said.

  His voice came out a whisper. “What did you do?”

  She stepped out of the tub and picked up a washing cup resting on its edge. She filled it with fresh water from the sink and washed her clotted hair. Jake watched her, his eyes wild like Archie’s had been.

  She said, “You know what he was fixin’ to do. Does it matter what I did?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “If you’re asking me whether I’m happy about it, I ain’t. I didn’t want to kill anybody no matter how much they had it coming. What I got inside me has a mind of its own. It was protecting me.”

  “I’m just letting it all sink in,” he said.

  “What did Mama tell you?”

  “She said you’re one of them and always have been.”

  “No, not one of them,” Amy said. “One of us.”

  “One of us,” he echoed, like he was wondering where he fit into that equation.

  “Do you love me?”

  “You know I do.”

  “If you don’t, you can go. I’ve always been alone.”

  Her mind flashed to the first time they met, though of course it wasn’t really the first time. Butler wasn’t a big school. They’d grown up together. But Amy being the recluse she was, they’d never talked. When Jake showed up one day and Sally said, You know Jake Coombs, don’t you?, it was like the first time.

  Her heart had galloped in her chest, a sweet burn coursing through her veins. Delicious agony. The world expanded with it, so big and full of heady possibilities. Right then, she knew she wanted him to be hers, maybe forever.

  Amy still wanted it. But he had to want her back. He had to say it.

  She said again, “Do you love me?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I do.”

  “You do what?”

  His eyes shifted to meet hers. “I do love you, Amy Green.”

  “Am I yours? And are you mine?”

  “Yes.”

  “Forever and ever.”

  “Forever,” he said, and she could tell he meant it.

  Amy held out her hand. “Come on.”

  She led him to the guest room down the hall and shut the door behind them. Turned the flashlight off. She took small steps toward him until she heard him breathing.

  “Where are you?” he said.

  Amy untied the bathrobe and let it fall. “I’m right here.”

  His hand grazed her bare shoulder and withdrew as if scalded.

  “Amy,” he murmured.

  She loved hearing him say her name. “Am I beautiful?”

  “Beautiful,” he said.

  “Don’t be scared. Promise you’ll never be scared of me.”

  He reached again. She took his hand in hers and placed it against her chest. His skin felt hot against her heart. She said, “I love you, too, Jake Coombs.”

  They embraced with a shocked gasp. His hands caressed her. Always a gentle boy. Despite the stifling heat in the house, she shivered at his touch. A boy touching her without hurting her, a boy she wanted, a boy she loved.

  His lips pressed against hers. Like that first kiss under the dogwood, wild and wondrous. This time, they could do what they wanted without boundaries. He knew what she was now. They moved to the bed without a break in their random but purposeful dance. Their breath found an urgent rhythm, carrying them to the brink.

  They sprawled gasping after. The mattress damp with sweat, bedding strewn across the floor.

  “Wow,” he said, which made her giggle.

  “No kidding,” Amy said.

  She rolled on her side and listened to him catch his breath. Jake wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close.

  “The health book didn’t say nothing about that,” he said.

  “Chapter one,” she said. “Thunder and lightning.”

  “The atom bomb, then nirvana.”

  Waves of heat poured off him. She nestled against his sweating body, reveling in his touch and smell. “It’s us against the world now.”

  Amy had heard an actress say that in a movie once. She’d swooned at the drama of something she
’d wanted but didn’t understand. Now she understood. She no longer had to face the world alone. She was whole and complete. The monster was a part of her now, and so was Jake.

  He stirred, restless.

  “What’s wrong?” she said.

  “I’m worried about my pa.”

  “I’m sure he’s okay. He’s a very formidable man.”

  “He wasn’t always this hard. Ma’s dying changed him. He started hating the plague kids. I was thinking I should go find him. Make sure he’s okay.”

  “Then we’ll do that,” Amy said.

  “You don’t have to come along if you don’t want. It’s dangerous out there.”

  “Us against the world. That means I come with you. See how it works?”

  Jake kissed her forehead. “All right. Pa is a leader. I want to try to talk sense into him. We need to stop the fighting before more people get killed.”

  “How do you plan to do that?”

  “If everybody wants it to stop, it’ll stop.”

  “And if they don’t want it to stop, what then?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But we won’t know if we don’t ask.”

  Jake was still trying to make things right. A voice shouting in the wilderness. Doomed to fail, but he was right, somebody had to ask. Somebody had to try. If nobody did, there was no chance at all it would ever stop.

  In any case, she was going with him. She loved him in her bones, she understood that now. He had accepted her and the monster inside her. They had become one flesh. One germ. Wherever he went, she would go, too.

  This was real love. You took somebody as they were and did anything for them.

  Linda rooted through her drawers until she found a flashlight and handful of D batteries. She left it off and crept up the stairs, one hand feeling the wall. She winced at each creak her slippered feet made on the floorboards. She knew what her daughter and Jake were up to in the spare bedroom and didn’t want to disturb them.

  She opened the door to Amy’s room. A wall of scent, sharp and metallic, flooded out. The air had a cloying taste. Linda clicked on the flashlight and after a few slaps got it to cast a yellow beam across the room.

  The body lay crumpled on the floor, now sodden and black with blood.

  “Tarnation,” she whispered.

  What a mess. It was Bowie all over again. Like Bowie, Archie had messed with the wrong girl. Mama would take care of it.

  “Just you and me now, kid,” she said.

  She’d poured more bourbon down her worn gullet tonight than she usually did, but the violence had electrified her right back to sobriety. She’d known, when Amy took Archie upstairs, how it’d end even if her little girl hadn’t.

  She crouched and gripped the boy’s hands to pull him into a sitting position. Then up and over her shoulders with a grunt. She staggered in a fireman’s carry, shifting her feet until she had them aimed at the door. The kid weighed a ton. Like hauling a sack of meat. Plodding the whole way, she got him downstairs and into the trunk of her car. She paused to catch her breath then went to search for her car keys.

  It proved an otherwise easy disposal this time. Linda drove a mile down the road, dragged the body out, and left it in the ditch. When the authorities showed up to put the town to rights, they’d sweep it up as part of the larger tragedy. Like drowning somebody during the Great Flood.

  Back at the house, Linda filled a bucket at the backyard pump and brought it into the kitchen. She mixed a solution of ammonia and water in another then carried both buckets up to Amy’s bedroom. She blotted at the carpet bloodstains with the solution and then with the cold water. The stained rags went into a Hefty bag. After a while, she wiped the sheen of sweat from her forehead and decided it was good enough until morning.

  She trudged back downstairs and sat on the couch with her .38 resting on her lap. She knocked back the remains of the bourbon in her glass and poured another finger. Thirsty work, cleaning up after that little girl. Lord, the things a mother did for her child. It drove you to drink.

  Upstairs, her daughter and her boyfriend had joined together. Which didn’t matter, if things out there were as bad as she thought they were. Amy being a plague child, all the secrets and lies, none of it mattered anymore. He loved her, and she loved him. They were the only two people in the world right now, while the real world outside slid toward the abyss.

  Let them have their world while it lasted.

  Her Amy could have done worse. Jake was different than most. Gentle and understanding. He’d taken the germ for her. Amy needed a boy like him.

  Come sunrise, they were all family. By joining with Amy, Jake had become the man of the house. As for her baby girl, she was growing up and didn’t need her mama anymore. She’d befriended the monster inside her, and it would go on protecting her and her kin. Amy and Jake would protect each other, and she would do what she could to watch over them.

  Linda lit a Virginia Slim with trembling hands. The gun rested on her thigh. The clock ticked on the mantle. She checked the time. Four hours after midnight. She turned the flashlight off and sat in the dark.

  Waiting for the end, or the beginning.

  Forty-Four

  The black Lincoln Town Car drove into the A & P parking lot. Tinted windows. Government plates. The car parked and idled for a while before its engine cut.

  Goof opened the passenger door and got out. He stretched in his bathrobe, pajamas, and slippers. A heavy gun rested in his pocket, a present for future Goof.

  “Thanks for the ride, partner,” he said and slammed the door.

  The car pulled away, its zombie driver given orders to go home after taking him to Huntsville.

  A long, long drive, but the sightseeing had been breathtaking.

  Burning crosses along I-85. Air raid sirens in Gastonia. A herd of plague children marching past a jackknifed tractor trailer outside Greenville. Highway Patrol roadblocks set up around Atlanta, which he’d had to talk his way through.

  Brain had foreseen this. His revolution had turned out not to be such a joke after all. Goof guessed that was why they called him Brain.

  Pussy had wanted to march on Washington. After they all busted out of Special Facility, she rounded up the kids into an army. If they could attack the power structure in D.C., it might give the kids all over the country a fighting chance.

  Goof had just wanted to go home.

  Only Huntsville wasn’t here anymore, not exactly.

  Pussy’s whiskers had drooped when he’d told her. I thought we had a thing going, she said. He tried to give her a smack on the lips and ended up kissing her forehead instead. He told her he’d look her up after the revolution. He knew she’d give Reagan hell. Whatever she found in D.C. that wasn’t broken, she’d break it.

  Then she’d most likely die along with the other kids. Along with all the kids everywhere. They’d rampaged through the towns around their Homes, but these were small towns in poor counties. Later on, the Army National Guard would show up with tanks and helicopters and say, Okay, children, you’ve had your fun.

  Then wham, blam, thank you, ma’am.

  Goof wanted to enjoy his freedom while he had it. He didn’t want to die fighting. He wanted to die knowing he’d lived.

  Along the long drive home, he’d nursed a fantasy of Huntsville emptied of normals and filled with plague kids driving cars, shopping, watching TV. He’d find a nice house and have his friends over for barbecue, everybody laughing as they tucked into pork ribs. Pussy showing up flustered saying, Sorry I’m late, honey, and Goof telling her, You’re right on time. Kissing her on the lips with perfect aim.

  Instead, everywhere he looked, he saw smashed cars, downed telephone poles, and bodies. A house fire lit the scene. A tangle of carts and trash littered the parking lot outside the A & P, which had been partially looted.

  He wondered where he should go now and laughed at the first thing that popped into his head. The Home. He wanted to go back to the Home.

  He shou
ld have had the driver stick around a little longer. Past Goof strikes again. It was gonna be a long walk.

  A voice said, “Well, look what the cat dragged in.”

  He wheeled as three plague kids sauntered up. Catty Wampus, Digger, and Eerie. He grinned and struck a nonchalant pose.

  “Surprised to see me?”

  He’d forgotten to bring back one of his fedoras. Damn.

  “You’re just in time to miss everything, goofus.” Catty Wampus gave him a once-over, taking in his pajamas. “You sleep through the whole thing or what?”

  “I came all the way from Virginia just to see you, Cat.”

  “What did they do to you up there?”

  “Oh, you know. Frankenstein experiments, that sort of thing.”

  “You’re full of it,” Eerie said.

  “What’s it like out there?” Catty Wampus said. “Outside of town?”

  “It looks pretty much just like this.”

  The kids grinned.

  “We’re winning,” she said.

  “Good for you. I’m gonna go back to the Home.”

  “It ain’t there. We burned it to the ground.”

  Goof had come all this way for nothing.

  “Where’s Brain?” he said.

  “He went out to the Albod farm. Ain’t seen him since. Tiny’s leading us.”

  Eerie sniggered at his pajamas. “Maybe you should—”

  “Wait here while I get a ten-speed bike for you,” Goof said.

  The kid loped off.

  Digger scowled. “Hey, what—”

  “Do you say I go look for one, too?”

  Goof smiled at Catty Wampus while the kid shuffled off into the shadows. “Say something.”

  She cocked her head and crossed her arms.

  “Come on,” he said. “Just one little word. I won’t do it again, honest.”

  She shook her head.

  The kids returned with bikes. He picked a brand-new red Schwinn and climbed on, his powder-blue bathrobe draped behind him.

  “See you later, suckers,” he said as he pedaled off.

  Catty Wampus called after him, “You suck—”

  “While I find a ten-speed bike,” he yelled over his shoulder, laughing.