Blue World (3 page)

Emma blinked, did not answer; her hand hesitated as she put a bowl of soup in front of Joe. Winslow laughed quietly, a laugh devoid of mirth.

“Sure thing,” Toby said as he reached into his jeans pocket. He brought out a folding knife, got the blade extended. “I’ll do it,” he offered, and started carving the crust away.

“Ma’am? Here’s your soup.” Emma put a bowl in front of her.

Carla knew she couldn’t take a bite of hot soup, not in this already-steaming place. “Can we… have something cold to drink, please?”

“Nothin‘ but water here,” Emma said. “Ice machine’s broke. Hush up and eat your soup.” She moved away to serve Miss Nancy.

And then Carla saw it.

Right there. Spelled out in letters, floating on the top of her alphabet soup.

Boys crazy.

The knife was at work, carving, carving.

Carla’s throat was dust-dry, but she swallowed anyway. Her eyes watched the moving blade, so terribly close to her little girl’s throat.

“I said, eat it!”

Emma almost shouted.

Carla understood. She put her spoon into the bowl, churned up the letters so he wouldn’t see, then took a mouthful that all but seared her tongue.

“Like it?” Toby asked Trish, holding the blade before her face. “Look at it shine! Ain’t it a pretty th--”

He did not finish his sentence, because in that instant hot alphabet soup had been flung into his eyes. But not by Carla. By Joe, who had come out of his daze and now grabbed at the knife as Toby cried out and fell backward from his chair. Even blinded, Toby held off Joe as they fought on the floor, and Carla sat transfixed while precious seconds ticked past.

“Kill him!” Emma screamed. “Kill the little bastard!”

She began beating Toby with the tray she held, but in the confusion most of her blows were hitting Joe. Toby flailed out with the knife, snagging Joe’s T-shirt and ripping a hole in it. Then Carla was on her feet too, and Miss Nancy was screaming something unintelligible. Carla tried to grab the boy’s wrist, missed, and tried again. Toby shouted and writhed, his face a twisted and terrible rictus, but Joe was holding on to him with all his dwindling strength. “Momma! Momma!” Trish was crying--and then Carla put her foot down on Toby’s wrist and pinned the knife hand to the linoleum.

The fingers opened, and Joe snatched up the knife.

Both he and his mother stepped back, and Toby sat up with the fury of hell on his face.

“Kill him!” Emma shouted, red to the roots of her hair. “Put that knife right through his evil heart!” She started to grab the blade, but Joe moved away from her.

Winslow was standing up, still calmly smoking his pipe. “Well,” he said quietly, “now you done it. Now you gone and done it.”

Toby crawled away from them toward the door, wiping his eyes clear with his forearm. He sat up on his knees, then slowly got to his feet.

“He’s crazy as hell!” Emma said. “He’s killed everybody in this damned town!”

“Not everybody, Emma,” Toby replied. The smile had returned. “Not yet.”

Carla had Trish in her arms, and she was so hot she feared she might pass out. All the air was heavy and stagnant, and now Miss Nancy was grinning into her face and pulling at her with her filthy hands.

“I don’t know what’s going on here,” Carla finally said, “but we’re getting out. Gas or not, we’re leaving.”

“Are you? Really?” Toby suddenly inhaled, and let the air out in a long, trilling whistle that made Carla’s skin creep. The whistling went on and on. Emma screamed, “Shut him up! Somebody shut him up!”

The whistling abruptly stopped, on an ascending note.

“Get out of our way,” Carla said. “We’re leaving.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. It’s yellowjacket summer, lady. Them things are just everywhere.”

Something touched the cafe’s window. A dark cloud began to grow, to spread across the outside of the glass.

“Ever been stung by a yellowjacket, lady?” Toby asked. “I mean bad, deep stung? Stung right to the bone? Stung so bad that you’d scream for somebody to cut your throat and end the misery?”

The windows were darkening. Miss Nancy whimpered, and began to cower under a table.

“It’s yellowjacket summer,” Toby repeated. “They come when I call ‘em. They do what I want ’em to. Oh, I speak their tongue, lady. I’ve got the beckonin‘ touch.”

“Oh, Jesus.” Winslow shook his head. “Now you’ve gone and done it.”

The bright sunlight was going away. Darkness was falling fast. Carla heard the high, thin droning noise from the thousands of yellowjackets that were collecting on the windows, and a trickle of sweat ran down her face.

“State trooper come here once. Lookin‘ for somebody. I forget who. He says, ’Boy? Where’re your folks? How come ain’t nobody around here?‘ And he was gonna put a call through on his radio, but when he opened his mouth I sent ’em in there. They went right smack down his throat. Oh, you should’ve seen that trooper dance!” Toby giggled at the obscene memory. “They stung him to death from the inside out. But they won’t sting me, ‘cause I speak their tongue.”

The light was almost gone, just a little shard of red-hot sun breaking through when the mass of yellowjackets shifted.

“Well, go on, then,” Toby said, and motioned toward the door. “Don’t let me stop you.”

Emma said, “Kill him right now! Kill him and they’ll fly off!”

“Touch me,” Toby warned, “and I’ll make ‘em squeeze through every damned chink in this place. I’ll make ’em sting your eyeballs out and go up your ears. And I’ll make ‘em kill the little girl first.”

“Why? For God’s sake…

why?“

“Because I can,“ he answered. “Go on. Your van’s just a short walk.”

Carla set Trish down. She looked into the boy’s face for a moment, then took the knife from Joe’s hand.

“Give it here,” Toby ordered.

She hesitated in the twilight, ran her forearm across her face to mop up some of the sweat, and then she walked to Toby and pressed the blade against his throat. His smile faltered.

“You’re going to walk with us,” she said, her voice quavering. “You’re going to keep them off, or I swear to God that I’ll shove this right through your neck.”

“I ain’t goin‘ nowhere.”

“Then you’ll die here with us. I want to live, and I want my children to live, but we’re not staying in this… this insane asylum. I don’t know what you had planned for us but I think I’d rather die. So: which is it?”

“You won’t kill me, lady.”

Carla had to make him believe she would, though she didn’t know what she’d do if the time came. She tensed, drove her hand forward in a short, sharp jab. Toby winced, and a little drop of blood ran down his throat.

“That’s it!” Emma crowed. “Do it! Do it!”

A yellowjacket suddenly landed on Carla’s cheek. Another on her hand. A third buzzed dangerously close to her left eye.

The one on her cheek stung her, the pain searing and vicious. It seemed to make her entire spine vibrate as if she’d suffered an electric shock, and tears came to her eyes, but she kept the blade against his throat.

“One for one,” he said.

“You’re going to walk with us,” Carla repeated as her cheek started swelling. “If either of my children is hurt, I’ll kill you.” And this time her voice was steady, though four yellowjackets crawled over her knuckles.

Toby paused. Then he shrugged and said, “Okay. Sure. Let’s go.”

“Joe, hold on to Trish’s hand. Then grab my belt. Don’t let go, and for God’s sake don’t let her go either.” She prodded Toby with the knife. “Go on. Open the door.”

“No!”

Winslow protested. “Don’t go out there! You’re crazy, woman!”

“Open it.”

Toby slowly turned, and Carla pressed the blade against the pulsing vein in his neck while she grasped his collar with her other hand. He reached out--slowly, very slowly--and turned the doorknob. He pulled the door open, the harsh sunlight blinding Carla for a few seconds. When her vision had returned, she saw a dark, buzzing cloud waiting in the doorway.

“I can put this in your neck if you try to run,” she warned him. “You remember that.”

“I don’t have to run. You’re the one they want.” And he walked into the cloud of yellowjackets with Carla and her children right behind him.

It was like stepping into a black blizzard, and Carla almost screamed, but she knew that if she did they were all lost; she kept one hand closed around Toby’s collar and the knife digging into his neck, but she had to squeeze her eyes shut because the yellowjackets swarmed at her face. She couldn’t find a breath, felt a sting and then another on the side of her face, heard Trish cry out as she was stung too. “Get them away, damn it!” she shouted as two more stung her around the mouth. The pain ripped through her face; she could already feel it swelling, distorting, and at that instant panic almost swept her senses away. “Get them away!” she told him, shaking him by the collar. She heard him laugh, and she wanted to kill him.

They came out of the vicious cloud. Carla didn’t know how many times she’d been stung, but her eyes were still okay. “You all right?” she called. “Joe? Trish?”

“I got stung in the face,” Joe said, “but I’m okay. So is Trish.”

“Hush crying!” she told the little girl. Carla’s right eyelid had been hit, and the eye was starting to swell shut. More yellowjackets kept humming around her head, pulling at her hair like little fingers.

“Some of’em don’t like to listen,” Toby said. “They do as they please.”

“Keep walking. Faster, damn you!”

Someone screamed. Carla looked over her shoulder, saw Miss Nancy running in the opposite direction with a swarm of several hundred yellowjackets enveloping her. The younger woman flailed madly at them, dancing and jerking. She took three more steps and went down, and Carla quickly looked away because she’d seen that the yellowjackets completely covered Miss Nancy’s face and head. The screams were muffled. In another moment they ceased.

A figure stumbled toward Carla, clutching at her arm. “Help me… help me,” Emma moaned. The sockets of her eyes were crawling with yellowjackets. She started to fall, and Carla had no choice but to pull away from her. Emma lay twitching on the ground, feebly crying for help.

“You’ve gone and done it now, woman!” Winslow was standing untouched in the doorway as the thousands of yellowjackets flew in a storm around him. “Damn, you’ve done it!”

But Carla and the kids were out of the worst of it. Still, whining currents of yellowjackets followed them. Joe dared to look up, and he could no longer see the sun directly overhead.

They reached the gas station, and Carla said, “Oh, my God!”

The van was a solid mass of yellowjackets, and the gas station’s sagging old roof was alive with them.

The pickup truck was still there. Over the whining and humming, Carla heard the sound of the baseball game on TV. “Help us!” she cried. “Please! We need help!”

Toby laughed again.

“Call him! Tell him to come out here! Do it now!”

“Mase is watchin‘ the baseball game, lady. He won’t help you.”

She shoved him toward the screen door. A few yellowjackets were clinging to the screen, but they took off as Toby approached. “Hey, Mase! Lady wants to see you, Mase!”

I

“Mom,” Joe said, his lips swollen and turning blue. “Mom…”

She could see a figure in there, sitting in front of the glowing TV screen. The man wore a cap. “Please help us!” she shouted again.

“Mom… listen…”

“HELP US!” she screamed, and she kicked the screen door in. It fell from its hinges to the dusty floor.

“Mom… when I was in the bathroom… and he talked to somebody in here… I didn’t hear anybody answer him.”

And then Carla understood why.

A corpse sat before the TV. The man was long dead-- many months, at least--and he was nothing but a red clay husk with a grinning, eyeless face.

“GET EM, MASE!”

the boy wailed, and he tore away from Carla’s grip. She struck with the blade, caught him across the throat, but not enough to stop him. He shrieked and jumped like a top gone crazy.

Yellowjackets began streaming from the corpse’s eye sockets, the cavity where the nose had been, and the straining, terrible mouth. Carla realized with soul-numbing horror that the yellowjackets had burrowed a nest inside the dead man, and now they were pouring out of him by the thousands. They swarmed toward Carla and her children with relentless fury.

She whirled around, picked up Trish under one arm, and shouted, “Come on!” to Joe. She raced toward the van, where thousands more yellowjackets were stirring, starting to fly up and merge into a yellow-and-black-striped wall.

Carla had no choice but to thrust her hand into the midst of them, digging for the door handle.

They covered her hand in an instant, plunged their stingers deep, as if directed by a single malevolent intelligence. Howling with pain, Carla searched frantically for the handle. The sea of yellowjackets flowed up her forearm, up over her elbow, and toward her shoulder, stinging all the way.

Her fingers closed around the handle. She got the door open as yellowjackets attacked her neck, cheeks, and forehead. Both Trish and Joe were sobbing with pain, but all she could do was to throw them bodily into the van. She grabbed up handfuls of yellowjackets and crushed them between her fingers, then struggled in and slammed the door.

Still, there were dozens of them inside. Enraged, Joe started swatting them with his comic book, took off one sneaker and used that as a weapon too. His face was covered with stings, both eyes badly swollen.

Carla started the engine. Used the windshield wipers to brush a crawling mat of the insects aside. And through the windshield she saw the boy, his arms uplifted, his flame-colored hair now turned yellow and black with the yellowjackets that clung to his skull, his shirt covered with them, and blood leaking from the gash on the side of his neck.

Carla heard herself roar like a beast. She sank her foot to the floorboard.

The Voyager leapt forward, through the storm of yellowjackets.

Toby saw, and tried to jump aside. But his twisted, hideous face told Carla that he knew he was a step too late.

The van hit him, knocking him flat. Carla twisted the wheel violently to the right and felt a tire wobble as it crunched over Toby’s body. Then she was away from the pumps and speeding through Capshaw with Joe hammering at yellowjackets inside the van.