The Waking Dark

by Robin Wasserman

  It had been four days, but Jule could not get used to the house. Though she had, for the moment, stopped expecting the tap of a police baton against the solid oak door, the place showed no signs of becoming a home. Or rather, with its procession of family portraits marching up the stairs, its height chart carved into the kitchen doorway, its bookshelves cluttered with dried flowers and porcelain cats, it was very much a home – just not hers. For the first time in her life, Jule had a real bedroom, complete with solid walls, a full-sized mattress, and a door that locked. But she couldn’t sleep. Vaguely familiar faces grinned down at her from photo collages; a diary chronicled someone else’s dull, effortless life. Whenever she flicked the light switch, a neon sign on top of the bookshelf flared to life: CASSANDRA, in glowing curlicues of pink and blue. Jule was no stranger to labels; at home, her cramped scrawl marked half the items in the fridge, yogurt and soy milk and frozen pizza that she’d bought with her own cash. She had a feeling that Cassandra hadn’t needed labels any more than she’d needed that lock on her door. The fact that the diary was just tucked under the pillow for anyone to find – the fact there was a diary at all – suggested a girl who took walls for granted. That was why Jule wouldn’t let herself feel guilty about squatting in Cassandra’s bedroom. Well, that, and the whole baby-killer thing.

  There were more than a few empty houses in Oleander this week. Some people had left town and been unable to get back with the roads blocked; some people had died. Some fled a couple of broken windows and the inconvenience of a leaky roof in favor of a neighbor’s couch or a room at the town’s only motel. The Porters were in a category of their own. Jule had heard that they left town soon after their daughter was sentenced to life in the loony bin, but who left town without taking a sliver of their life with them, or at least a couple of pictures off the wall? Who kept paying the electric bill for a house they never intended to see again? The place was eerie in its intactness, as if the Porters had walked up the stairs one night and never come down again, and Jule wondered how long her uncles had had their eye on the place. The Prevettes weren’t the only squatters, not this week, but somehow they’d managed to get their hands on the best vacant property in town. It probably didn’t hurt that they’d set up camp as the first clouds were still gathering in the sky – not that any of them had bothered to tell Jule.

  That morning, she woke up to the smell of coffee and eggs, which was strange enough. Stranger still was discovering, when she padded downstairs, her mother pouring coffee for her uncles Teddy and Axe. The three of them sat around the kitchen table stuffing their faces while Scott, of all people, stood at the stove on frying-pan duty.

  “We got peppers, onions, and tomatoes,” Scott said, bent nearly in half over the stove, which had not been built for someone of his height. “Take your pick, Jaybird.”

  It was what he’d called her when she was small and he was still Uncle Scott, the big man who’d swung her in loop-the-loops like a stunt plane and promised to protect her from the big bad world. Over the years, both of them had gotten harder – with the world, and with each other. Maybe, Jule thought, the house was haunted by the ghosts of domesticity past, and even the fearsome Prevette brothers were unable to resist. She nearly smiled, and then she noticed Scott’s thick leather belt. Hanging from it, in a makeshift holster, was his favorite knife.

  “Just tomatoes,” she said quietly. “Please.”

  Her mother shifted to make room for her at the table. “Where’s the —” Jule swallowed the word parasite. “Billy?”

  “Don’t you worry about that,” her mother said. “He’s doing some work for your uncles.”

  “Billy? Work?”

  “You’d be surprised how useful your stepfather is making himself around here.”

  Axe scowled. “Shut up about that, Annie.”

  “Useful as a human garbage disposal, maybe,” Jule said. “Or if you’ve got a burning need to turn beer into piss. But I’m not sure that qualifies as work.”

  An uncomfortable glance passed between Teddy and Axe, and then a plate slammed down in front of her. “Eat,” Scott said.

  She asked no follow-up questions.

  After invading the house, Scott had claimed the master bedroom. It meant Jule’s mother and the parasite were consigned to the pullout couch in the office, while Teddy and Axe and the girl they shared got stuck in the guest bedroom, with its two twin beds. Jule had no idea how she’d scored a room of her own, and the not knowing didn’t sit easy with her. It was like the omelets, and the specter of Scott Prevette with a red-checked apron tied around his waist – pieces that fit together into a puzzle she couldn’t quite solve.

  Scott’s latest woman, another dishwater blonde whose name Jule always forgot, had not made the move with them, and it seemed wisest not to ask where she’d gone. As a rule, Scott was almost never without female companionship, but lately, his interest seemed to have waned. His interest in everything had waned, except for his hunting knife. Even the business fell mostly to Axe and Teddy these days. Of course, that was before the trailer camp had been wiped out, and with it, the padlocked trailer and whatever was secreted inside. Now it was the basement that had been declared off-limits. Jule didn’t want to know. Not that it mattered what they were making down there, if they couldn’t move their product – so Axe and Teddy had spent the last several days hunting for a way out of town. But the government cordon was tight, and enforced with more firepower than the Prevettes were willing to take on. Frontal assault wasn’t Scott’s style: he liked to stay a shadow, slipping through the gaps. They’d yet to find him one. Jule suspected they were starting to get a little desperate.

  After four days stuck in Oleander with no phones, no Internet, tanks at the borders, and an expanse of toxic something lurking just beyond, a lot of people were getting desperate.

  “Those FEMA people are shipping in more food this afternoon,” Jule’s mother said. “I’ll see what I can get.”

  “Get more eggs,” Axe mumbled around a runny mouthful of omelet. He scraped a last bit off his own plate before scooping a forkful off his younger brother’s. Teddy whacked his knuckles, which were tattooed HATE and PUNCH, the C and H crammed together on his pinkie – Axe was better at fighting than counting. Axe was, in fact, better at fighting than he was at anything. He claimed that the red devil flames he’d had tattooed across his face and shaved head were intended as a warning, but he loved nothing more than when people failed to heed it.

  “FEMA.” Scott snorted. “Some people will believe anything.”

  Scott’s world was a web of conspiracy. His catalog of nefarious plots against the common man expanded every year, and currently included: driver’s licenses, fluoride, taxes, email, flu shots, parking tickets, and pretty much every governmental program and department, from the EPA to UNICEF. Sometimes his caution was warranted – it’s not generally a good idea to declare meth-generated income to the IRS. Other times – as when he’d spent several weeks hiding in the swamp, convinced that defense contractor Gold Mountain Trust had teamed up with the FBI to assassinate him with a fleet of robotic drones – it was less than productive.

  Jule’s mother rolled her eyes. She was the only one who dared poke fun at his “theories.” “Your uncle here thinks we’ve all been duped, and the army’s taking over.”

  “What the hell would the army want with Oleander?” Jule said.

  “Whatever they want, they’ll get it.” Scott drew his knife and laid it flat on the table. “’Less someone stops them.” His eyes were redder than usual, his motions fluttery, with a telltale twitch. Teddy and Axe were nearly bouncing in their seats. There’d been a time when Scott was good about keeping himself and his brothers to a low level of consumption – enough to enjoy the party, not enough to crash it, he liked to say. It was a long time ago.

  “Scotty says they’re why the phones still don’t work.” Teddy looked to his big brother for approval. He was no good at thinking for himself, and so more than willing to let
anyone else do the thinking for him. It made him everyone’s favorite, at least now that James was gone. “And the computers.”

  “Scotty probably also thinks the government fascists made the storm in the first place,” Jule’s mother said. “All part of their evil plan. Go ahead, tell them.”

  “I never said that.” Scott rubbed the knife handle between his palms. For a moment, the silver blade looked to be coated in blood. Jule blinked, and the crimson stain faded – just a trick of the light. “But I wouldn’t put it past ’em.”

  Before he could elaborate on Uncle Sam’s dark intentions, there was a squeal outside and then a loud crash. Everyone froze.

  Scott jerked his head at Axe. “Check it out.”

  Axe shrugged. “Sounds like raccoons getting into the garbage.”

  “How about you go see for yourself?”

  Axe nodded at his plate, which was now heaped with leftovers from Jule’s and her mother’s plates. “Can’t it wait till I’m done?”

  Scott snatched the plate and flung it against the wall. Omelet and ketchup spattered against the beige paint. “You’re done.”

  No one spoke as Axe trudged toward the back door to investigate the noises, and no one made a move to clean up the mess. Scott played with his knife. A few minutes later, Axe reappeared. Dangling from his hand, like a kitten wriggling from its mother’s jaw, was a child. Scruffy and gap-toothed and certainly no more than seven or eight, he didn’t look nearly as frightened as he should be.

  Axe dumped the boy on the floor. “He was looking in the window. Trying to spy on us.”

  “Was not!” The kid scrambled to his feet, but couldn’t get very far with Axe’s meaty hand locked on his collar. “Let go of me.”

  “How about you tell us what you’re doing here,” Scott said. “Someone send you here to spy on me? You working for someone?”

  “He’s seven,” Jule snapped. “He’s not working for anyone. He’s probably just lost.”

  “I’m eight,” the kid said, like out of everyone in the room, she had now caused him the greatest offense. “And I’m not lost.”

  “Not too smart, either, apparently,” Jule’s mother said wearily. “Axe, let go of the boy.”

  Axe looked to Scott, who nodded. He let go.

  “Boy, what is your name?” she asked.

  He pressed his lips together.

  Scott lumbered over to the child, and looked down at him from what must have seemed a great distance.

  “My sister asked you a question,” Scott said. It was not the voice he used on children he liked.

  It turned out, the kid had the capacity for fear after all. He’d gone pale and shaky. “Milo. Ghent.”

  “Son of a Preacher Man!” Teddy laughed. “That’s who we got here, Scotty. Son of a Preacher Man!”

  Of course, that was why the kid looked so familiar, Jule realized. Daniel had the same scruff of hair and the same crooked nose. This was the little brother he’d been so keen to find the day of the storm – the one with, as Daniel had put it, an inconvenient urge to wander.

  “Your daddy send you over here?” Scott favored the boy with a lopsided grin that revealed his blackened teeth. “He want you to tell me I’m going to burn in hell? Because he’s passed that message along already, loud and clear.”

  “No one sent me,” Milo said. “I, uh…”

  “You, uh, what?”

  “I guess I’m lost.”

  “You guess you’re lost.”

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  Scott’s smile widened hideously. “You’re not planning to tell anyone what you saw here,” he said. “Or who?”

  Milo shook his head solemnly.

  “I’ll take him home,” Jule said quickly.

  “He goes home when I say he can,” Scott said. “And I don’t recall saying that yet.”

  “You didn’t say it yet,” Teddy said.

  Scott glared down at Milo. “You know what we do to spies around here?”

  Milo shook his head again.

  Scott drew his knife and ran the blade along his index finger.

  Jule gripped the edge of the table. Scott just wanted to scare the kid, that was all. That’s what she told herself. But Scott was high, and when Scott got high, he got dangerous.

  And, crazy as it sounded, there were times when she thought the knife might have ideas of its own.

  “I’m taking him home.” Jule grabbed Milo’s hand and pulled him out of the kitchen before anyone could argue. “Now.”

  “You do what you need to, Jaybird,” Scott called after her. It was the voice of the knife. “That’s our only job on this earth, ain’t it? But you remember who’ll always be here waiting for you when the doing’s done.”

  Jule shoved Milo onto the doorstep and rang the bell. Daniel opened the door with murder in his eyes. “You have got to be kidding me,” he said.

  “He was poking around places he shouldn’t be.”

  “And that’s my fault?”

  “Did I say that?”

  “You were thinking it,” Daniel muttered. But when he turned to his brother, the fury washed out of his face. Jule could see him struggle with trying to keep some vestige of anger there, just to put enough fear into the kid that he wouldn’t do it again – but he wasn’t doing a great job of it. “What gives, Milo? We talked about this.”

  “I needed to get something for a friend,” Milo said.

  “What friend?” Daniel asked, sounding suspicious enough to make Jule suspect the kid might not have any.

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Well, did you get it?” Jule asked, wondering what he could possibly have been looking for in some bushes on the opposite side of town. Probably the kid had been on some quest for magic beans or whatever it was that kids decided their invisible buddies couldn’t live without.

  Milo shook his head.

  “You should have brought him to his mother’s house,” Daniel said. “He’s not supposed to be here.”

  “She’s not home,” Milo said.

  “So where is she?”

  Milo shrugged. “She left somewhere. She didn’t tell me.”

  “She left you alone?” Now, instead of faking fury, Daniel was trying to mask it. Again, it was a poor job. “Does she do that a lot?”

  “I guess,” Milo said.

  “Is that why you’re always coming over here?”

  “It’s why she doesn’t know I come over here,” Milo clarified, not so dumb for an eight-year-old after all. Then he mumbled something else.

  “What?” Daniel said.

  “Nothing.”

  But to Jule, it had sounded like You don’t always know, either.

  Daniel sighed. “What did you promise me?”

  “Don’t remember.”

  “I think you do.”

  Milo grinned. “Prove it.”

  “That’s it,” Daniel said. “Come on.” He shut and locked the door behind him.

  “Where are we going?” Milo said.

  “Church.”

  Jule jerked in surprise. She knew the father was a religion nut, but Daniel had shown no signs – until now. Dragging your little brother off to church on a Monday afternoon to repent for the sin of being eight seemed extreme enough to qualify.

  “No way,” Milo said. “No. Uh-huh. Not there.”

  “They set up this day-camp thing,” Daniel told Jule, as if knowing exactly what she’d been thinking. “So there’s someone to watch the kids while their parents are cleaning up and… you know.”

  She did know: planning funerals, sitting by hospital beds, cursing unpaid insurance premiums, searching through wreckage, throwing useless cell phones against the wall, shouting at border patrols, doing whatever had led Milo’s mother to leave her son alone.

  “I got stuff to do here, Danny,” Milo said.

  “Yeah? What?”

  “It’s private.”

  “Then I guess it’s not getting done.”

  Milo crossed his arms and
sat on the ground, and Jule wondered if she was going to witness her first-ever full-blown temper tantrum. “Not going,” he said. “Not there.”

  “You don’t think I can make you go?”

  Jule tensed. If she’d tried this when she was a kid, Uncle Scott would have scooped her up and thrown her over his shoulder – that’s if she was lucky. Any of her mother’s boyfriends would have done worse, and some of them had. Daniel wasn’t much taller than she was, and he looked like he’d have trouble bench-pressing a beach ball. But compared to Milo, he was big.